The Trick Is To Keep Breathing
by neomaxizoomdweebie
Summary: After tragedy at Malfoy Manor, Draco is left on his own to face the world - and his own darkness. But can Harry pull him out on time? Set two years after Hogwarts. SLASH.
1. Prologue

_Title: The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
Author: Miss T  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Genre: Romance/Future-fic/Horror  
Notes: This story is based on one of my favourite adult-books of all time - Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite. The story is not exactly the same, just based around it, although some of it is very similar. I thought it was a good Harry/Draco plot, and I hope you all like it! Please please please take my recommendation of reading Drawing Blood... it really is good._

**The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
**_Prologue - The Dance of The Forgotten Death Eaters_

_All the bridges in the world  
Won't save you  
If there is no other side  
To cross to...  
Half full glasses  
Lost in empty houses..._

_ - silverchair - World Upon Your Shoulders_

Malfoy Manor was a cold and secluded mansion. The summer of 1996 was unusually cast-over, clouds dreary and dark, looming over the stark white building atop a lush green hill, threatening to spill rain over it's quiet form. After the rise and fall of Lord Voldemort, life inside the house became much the same - distant and cold. Relationships grew apart, each family member retreating to his or her area of the house, minding their own business, not daring to speak His name. Time for family love and bonding was gone - forgotten. What were the Malfoys without the praise of the Dark Lord?   
_Everything._ Draco Malfoy would tell himself, every night he drifted off to sleep. _We didn't, and don't need some fascist fallen dictator to decide our family fate for us. We're a powerful unit. This depression is pathetic and shows that we are weak. We are not weak.  
_Narcissa and Lucius' relationship grew colder within the year, and they found themselves barely communicating. This was getting too much for Draco. His Father looked worn out and beaten, ready to give up with the Ministry and their vast amounts of paperwork concerning the fate of the Death Eaters. But, of course, Lucius was never discovered of such tendencies. Still working for the Ministry, but only steadily so. Before this, he was on his way up - branded the next Minister of Magic, some said. But now, he remained where he was. Too tired. Too ashamed.  
Draco knew that Lucius liked to have a few drinks. A couple of whiskeys here and there - maybe even a double vodka. He would sit, mulling for hours in his empty study, looking for salvation at the bottom of a bottle, boring his eyes into the fireplace. Whenever Draco would walk past at night, he would always see the faint crackling of fire seeping from the gap in the doorway, the faint echoing of violin concerto's from the record player, on repeat of course.  
Draco often wondered if his father was planning on promoting himself within the Ministry. Whether he _wanted_ to. Draco still wasn't sure even what he _ himself_ wanted to do after Hogwarts. There was no way Lucius would approve of Draco's love to become a professional pianist, or artist, even. Draco would no doubt be dragged into the family tradition of working for the Ministry. Like father, like son.  
Draco let his elegant fingers run slowly along the keys of the giant piano in a vacant room of the mansion. The keys felt like death under his touch - cold and smooth marble, hard and unmoving. Pressing his fingers down, he straightened his back as a soft melody began to unfold, closing his eyes as it echoed throughout the room, bouncing off the walls.  
"You play beautifully, son." Lucius' firm but tender voice echoed over the playing, causing Draco to stop abruptly and look up. He felt ashamed that he let his father hear him, let his father hear the tune of his soul. As Lucius advanced on his son, Draco sat up straighter, placing his hands on his lap and lifting his chin up proudly.   
"Thank you, Father." He replied. Lucius nodded, patting his son's head, letting his fingers linger over the soft angel-hair for a moment longer than necessary, before leaning over to kiss the crown of Draco's head. Draco immediately looked down at his hands as his father left the room, noticing a tiny speck of moisture. Placing his fingers to his lips, he tasted the salty tear. His father's, or his own?

Draco walked past his Father's study again, hearing the familiar clink of ice inside a glass, the familiar roar of a beaten fire. To say he got a fright when Lucius stepped outside, was an understatement.  
"Father..." He breathed, placing his hand on his chest, his face colouring in shame.  
"What are you doing, son?" Lucius asked, his voice only slightly slurred. Draco couldn't help but wrinkle up his nose as his father's hot alcohol laced breath swept over his face.  
"Going to bed, Father." Draco replied, clasping his hands behind his back.  
"Very well. Would you like a drink before you leave, son?" Lucius' face twisted into a drunken smile, and he grasped for the handle of his Study door. Draco frowned and pursed his lips in hesitation. "Well... errr..."  
Lucius' smile became wider. "Oh, come on, son! How often is it that you get to have a drink with your dear old Father?"  
Draco dithered for another moment before nodding reluctantly. "Excellent." Lucius smiled, opening the door for Draco. As Draco entered the stifling room, his eyes scanned over his father's desk that was unusually disorganized, papers scattered and scrunched up into balls, used glasses and empty tumblers of drink decorated the typically spick and span wood.  
As Lucius handed his son a glass of whiskey, some of the brown spirit splattered over the sides and onto Draco's pale fingers. Wiping his fingers on his robes, Draco smiled nervously and took a large gulp of the liquid. It burned like fire down his throat, threatening to come back up, before Draco forced a dry swallow down.   
"That's it, son." Lucius said, cradling his own glass.  
Taking another gulp of the fiery drink, Draco placed the glass down and held a hand to his head. The world had suddenly become rather lopsided. "I think I better go to bed now, Father." He said quietly.  
"Yes, yes. Very well." Lucius said, waving his hand in the air.  
Draco nodded at his father before turning out of the room and walking down the hall into his own bedroom. After he had clumsily pulled on his pyjamas and got into bed, Draco swore to himself that he would never touch whiskey again.

As the morning sun streamed through the gap of the curtains in Draco's bedroom, he groaned rather audibly and clamped his hands to his head. His temples were buzzing, a pounding headache cursing through him. Blinking owlishly, Draco clawed for his dressing-gown atop his velvet sheets, pulling it on himself weakly before standing up. Panting shallowly and slowly making his way out of his bedroom, Draco decided that the house elves wouldn't have to worry about preparing a large breakfast for him this morning - a painkiller and a glass of water would do nicely.  
He saw the blood before he saw anything else.  
His heart stopped momentarily before he could find his breath again, somewhere deep within the cages of his chest. Deep crimson smudges littered the walls, decorating them in handprints and claw marks, moving up and down before resting down down down... further down... Mummy.  
Narcissa Malfoy lay in a crumpled heap next to the doorway of the bathroom, her head upturned - eyes open and glazed over. Her hands were a bloody mess, disfigured and entwining within each other, the bones glinting through the blood and reflecting in the daylight from the hall windows. Her hair was matted with dried blood, clear fluid ran freely from her temple where a large shard of glass was embedded into her skin, the fluid and blood mixing and tracing down her face and over her open eyes...  
Draco stumbled backwards, towards the main stairs of the building, unaware of the high pitched whimpering emitting from his own mouth. As he reached the banister of the stairs, he let his body come into contact with the metal railings, pushing deep into his stomach. Moaning louder, Draco lent over the stairs and threw up, wincing as the vomit slapped off the ground floor below him, splashing over the cold stone.  
Taking in a deep breath, Draco placed the back of his hand to his mouth and wiped at it forcefully before making his way down stairs to the elf's quarters. The door to the kitchen was ajar, the luminous light from the working stations seeping through and into the hall. Taking in a shaky breath, Draco placed his fingers onto the door and pushed it open.   
Draco let out a startled yell and stumbled backwards onto the wall, hitting his head violently off of the stone. Hyperventilating, he closed his eyes tightly and refused to look ahead of him. All six house elves - all six of them slaughtered. The carnage, the blood...   
Draco stood up immediately, his eyes still clamped shut. Grasping at the surrounding walls for support, he made his way back to the first floor. _ Father! I have to find Father! _He held onto the fading hope that maybe Lucius was still alive, that whoever had attacked the house had spared his Father. Panicking and walking with a urgent pace, Draco slammed his way into his father's study. It's where Lucius' colleagues found him hours later, when Lucius didn't show up for a meeting he had with the Ministry that day. They saw Narcissa's body first, and had nearly called the Auror's in for assistance before they heard the echoing whimpering.  
They found Draco curled into a small ball on the floor of Lucius Malfoy's study, eyes fixed on the body of his father. Lucius Malfoy had hung himself from the chandelier with a rope. He swung there, face swollen and sombre, his hands covered in blood. His eyes budged half way out of their sockets and his long silvery hair was in an erratic mess around his head. A large liquor bottle lay next to his dangling feet, a shard of glass missing from it, covered in dry blood.  
Someone lifted and carried Draco out of the horrific scene, still curled into a tight ball. The Dance of the Death Eaters was over.

__________

The Daily Prophet - July 14th, 1996**  
_By Rita Skeeter, Staff, official correspondent_**

**MISERY AT MALFOY MANOR  
**A bloodbath was discovered yesterday evening at the world famous wizarding family home, Malfoy Manor. Lucius Malfoy, current head of the Malfoy estate, has reported to have horrifically bludgeoned his wife, Narcissa Malfoy, and his staff of six house elves, before brutally committing suicide. The only surviving soul was Malfoy's only son, 16 year old Draco Malfoy.  
The Malfoy family, originally from France, have been famous for their pureblood wizarding for centuries and are one of the best groups of magic makers in the world. Malfoy, 44, worked for our very own Ministry of Magic, and was condemned as the future Minister. An Auror who helped clean up the tragedy has commented at the scene. "We believe that alcohol was involved... With these kinds of wizards, that is usually the case." So, does this mean that the famous Malfoy family are a long string of alcoholics? Maybe.**  
**After a meeting with close family friends, the Goyle's, Vanessa Goyle had only this to comment. "There was nothing wrong with Lucius. Not that I saw, anyway. If there was - it wouldn't have been anyone's business. Only the Malfoy's know what went on in that house." She then added; "Draco is a talented young wizard, I hope he sees past this horrific ordeal."  
No one would speculate on why Malfoy let his son live. The child has been removed from his current schooling and has been taken into custody of the Ministry, his fate is yet unknown.

~~~|~~~

to be continued...**  
  
**


	2. After All These Years

_Title: The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
Author: Miss T  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Genre: Romance/Future-fic/Horror  
Notes: This story is based on one of my favourite adult-books of all time - Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite. The story is not exactly the same, just based around it, although some of it is very similar. I thought it was a good Harry/Draco plot, and I hope you all like it! Please please please take my recommendation of reading Drawing Blood... it really is good.  
Notes 2: Ooo, I just had to do a whole Harry-High-Fidelity theme here. Argh! lol. And also - some of my reviewers were a bit confused on the last chapter - YES that was a prologue. That was when Draco was sixteen and spending his summer at Malfoy Manor. This chapter is three years after the 'incident'. Draco and Harry are both 19._

**The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
**_Chapter One - After All These Years_

_And every father's pain  
Casts a shadow over a broken son  
You'll be whole again  
And I'll be whole again  
All those years  
I was hurting to feel  
Something more than life._

_ - silverchair - After All These Years_

**3 YEARS LATER**

Harry Potter woke from mesmerizingdreams, not like those he suffered from five years ago. His scar no longer hurt. His scar was barely even noticeable anymore - fading lightly onto his skin, like the life he once had. Pulling the pillow off his face, Harry rubbed at his eyes and yawned loudly. He was now living in his own flat in London, a small and modest place, but nicely decorated and ever the typical teenage jumble of mess. After leaving Hogwarts, he had all his money exchanged from galleons to pounds, earning himself a small fortune and opening up a Muggle bank account. He lived alone, enjoying the comforts of friendly visits now and again from his old friends Ron and Hermione (who were now actually going out with each other), and the visits from new friends he had made in the Muggle world who knew him for 'just Harry', and not 'Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived.' He liked it this way. He was very happy.  
Reaching for the buzzing alarm clock on his bed side table, Harry bashed it with his fist before stretching out and kicking the blue sheets off from his body. After shower and a shave, Harry made his way through to his living room and turned on the telly. It was half past nine, so he was graced with the usual morning breakfast shows as he drunk his tea, occasionally making faces at the presenters of GMTV for talking such utter bollocks.  
Harry's living room was decorated homely colours of warm reds and creams, black leather sofas and dark wooden furniture. A large (muggle) framed photo of himself with Ron and Hermione on the last day of school, a year ago, lay on the wall next to the kitchen door.  
The bookshelf next to the TV was crammed with muggle-novels, the occasional title boldly crying out to the onlooker, _The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, The Lazy Student's Cookbook, _amongst others. Stacks of videos and DVDs were piled up neatly next to his television set, _Star Wars, The Matrix, Artificial Intelligence... _it was safe to say that Harry had turned out to be a bit of a geek. Unaware of such accusations, however, Harry enjoyed his quiet life. After another half an hour of insulting the TV presenter's intelligence, Harry made his way out of the door to work.  


The part of London where Harry stayed wasn't busy; not like the centre of London, anyway. As he made his way down the narrow pathway towards the record shop, Harry sighed happily as elderly women, people with prams and buggies, children and so on walked past him, not realising that he was one of the most famous names in the wizarding world.   
Plunging into his jeans pocket for his keys, Harry watched himself in the the glass in the shop door. His face was still the same, same round glasses, same dark eyebrows and very unruly hair, contrasting against the faint glow of bronze tinged skin. He had grown slightly taller over the past year, and his muscles didn't have the same feel to them after he had stopped playing Quidditch. It was sometimes odd to see himself without his school robes on, now that he was wearing a blue jumper and black jeans, no school shoes - just regular converse trainers. He loved the comfort of being a lazy muggle-teen.   
Placing the keys in the lock, he realised that the door was already open, his two work mates already inside and preparing the shop for the day ahead. "Alright lads?" Harry sighed, as he walked past the two men to dump his shoulder bag into the cluttered office.  
His two friends were in the middle of a heated 'discussion' over the music that was being played in the shop.  
"And which version do **you** like better, then?" The shorter of the two asked, folding his arms over. The other one, was in slight contrast to the stubby form of the man in front of him, had light red hair that was tied in a ponytail behind his head. He was skinny and tall, and Harry was often reminded of Bill Weasley whenever he looked at his work mate.  
"Well, since it's my tape we're listening to, it's obviously this one isn't it?" He retorted.  
The plump man snorted. "The Byrds?! Bullshit!"  
Harry was getting quite tired of their bickering already, and it was only 10 minutes into the day.  
"How can it be bullshit to state a preference, Doug?" He sighed, moving to the counter where he began to unload some money into the till.  
Doug shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Dylan always wins." He muttered under his breath as he continued to sort records out in the Pop section.  
The other man, named Andrew, rolled his eyes also and flipped the sign over at the door, opening the shop for the day.  
Harry Potter owned a record shop. That was his job. Not an Auror, not even a Mediwizard - but an owner of a muggle shop. And he loved it. After graduating from school, and opening up his bank account, Harry sifted through herds of paperwork and finances, and after a good six months, Spinning Records was his. They mainly sold old rock and pop albums, only some CD's, and promotion demos of local bands. It was for the music enthusiast, not the new age teeny bopper. Some way along the line, he had managed to find Doug and Andrew, employing them as sales assistants in the shop, and it had been history from there.  
"You want some coffee, Harry? I'm making a pot." Came Andrew's voice from the office a couple of hours later. Harry shivered involuntary. "No thanks, mate - I'll pass." He replied as he gave a customer back her change.  
"Are you sure?" Andrew came through onto the shop floor, two mugs in his hand.   
Harry nodded. "Very sure. I used to love the stuff- drunk it all the time. But I can't anymore, it makes me jumpy."  
Andrew nodded sympathetically. "What about decaf?"  
Harry shook his head. "No, can't even drink that, mate."  
Andrew raised an eyebrow. "How old are you again?"  
"Eighteen."  
Andrew rolled his eyes and made his way back to the office. "You need to relax, mate. Getting old before your time, you are."  
Harry laughed and continued to serve the long string of customers ahead of him. 

When Harry closed up for the night and made his way back home, the last thing he expected was a long trail of wizarding press lingering outside the entrance to his block of flats. Before he could process what was going on, Harry was suddenly blinded by the sharp flashes of cameras, the desperate voices of the reporters, only managing to pick up snippets of what they were saying.  
_"... almost three years..."  
"... defeated You-Know-Who..."  
"... living in the Muggle World..."  
"... does it feel..."  
"... love life? Getting married?..."  
"... Boy Who Lived is..."  
"... gone?"  
_After a quick few mumblings of 'no comment', Harry wrestled his way into his flat, stumbling with the door at first, but managing to enter none the less. Sighing, he let his keys drop to the floor and leaned against the closed door. _Even in the Muggle World, I can't escape the famous Harry Potter...  
_Last year, after graduation, he had told himself that he was leaving the magic world behind. The magic world didn't need Harry Potter anymore. He was no longer the Boy Who Lived - he was the Boy Who Defeated The Dark Lord. At the end of his fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry had faced the final battle with Voldemort himself. Many survived, many didn't - and the important thing was, he was gone. Lord Voldemort was defeated, and quite frankly, so was Harry. He didn't want to be famous anymore. So he found salvation in the Muggle World, where no one knew what his name meant. But now they had found him - and there was no escaping.  
Reaching for his phone, Harry numbly began to dial a number he knew so well.  
_**Ring Ring. Ring Ring. Ring...  
**Pick up, come on! Pick up!  
**Hello, this is Hermione Granger. Sorry I couldn't receive your call but if you leave your name and number I'll get back to you...  
**No no no! Hermione please "Hermione! Are you there? Hermione? PICK UP THE PHONE! Alright listen, they've found me. The press. I have to go, I have to get out of here... I can't stand it Hermione, I can't... please, tell me you and Ron will meet me tonight at the back of the flats next to my car. I'm leaving. And I don't know when I'll be back... if I'll be back. Just be there."  
**beeeeeep**_

~~~|~~~

The Knight Bus smelled of smoke and sweat and tiredness, the low hums of the engine enough to drive anyone into a dozy slumber. Draco shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his bag in a lump on his knees with a pad of parchment resting above it. His pencil was going to need a sharpening soon.  
The light from the outside windows was beginning to get dim as day retreated below the hills, wavering away into nothingness. Reaching over to charm the small light above his head, Draco continued to sketch on the pad.  
The elderly wizard sitting across from Draco sighed audibly and shifted around in his seat, pursing his lips and glaring up at the light above Draco's head. He finally dropped his gaze and stared directly at Draco. "Excuse me." he said. "Excuse me, young man!"  
Draco looked up with a frown. "Yes?"  
"Do you mind?" The wizard asked, gesturing the light above Draco's head. "Some of us would like to get some sleep."  
Draco felt the familiar feeling of a sneer creep over his features. "Yes. Yes I do mind, actually. I'm drawing." He snapped, raising an eyebrow.  
The elderly wizard shifted around again, huffing and puffing, his features turning purple. "And what exactly are you drawing that is so important, young man?"  
Silently, Draco turned his parchment around so that the wizard could see it. It was a pencilled drawing of a woman propped against a doorway, her mouth filled with blood, her head drenched in it, her hands in a bloody mess on her lap. "My mother." Draco said.  
The wizard's nostrils flared and he sat up straight. He opened his mouth to retort, but closed it quickly and turned the other way. Draco would have usually smiled in satisfaction at something like this, but his face felt so numb that he couldn't. Turning back to his drawing, Draco noticed that the wizard didn't say a word to him for the entire remainder of the journey.  


On Draco's eighteenth birthday, he had been taken out of wizarding foster care, left with his family fortune (including the Manor) and set free to the world. Deciding that the mansion held too many painful memories, Draco had been travelling ever since - staying in various towns over the past year - Paris, Edinburgh and even London. Now, after a year and a half of running, Draco decided that it was no use in hiding from the past. He had to go back to Wiltshire. A place he hadn't been to since he was sixteen. He couldn't let his father's mistakes ruin him anymore, he had to face his fears if he was going to get anywhere in life.  
As Draco stepped off the bus, he made his way down the quiet lane of the small wizarding village where Malfoy Manor was situated. It felt very odd and unnerving, and he tried over and over to block out mental images from his childhood.  
_Remember when I fell in that pond when I was flying? Thinking I was being so smart in front of Vince and Greg...  
_Taking in a shaky breath, Draco proceeded to move forward. His bag began to get annoyingly heavy on his back, and it wasn't until he felt the dry pangs of longing deep within his throat that he realised he was thirsty, and very hungry.  
When Draco arrived in the main street of the village, he stopped outside a small pub he didn't recognise. Sighing and pressing his hand to the door, Draco walked into a very empty looking room filled with floating white dust and dim lighting, and a man standing behind the bar, emptying a bag of galleons into the till.   
"Errr... sorry, are you closed?" He asked the wizard, who looked around 40 or so. He had long straggly hair tied back in a ponytail, and was very lanky-built, with bottle green robes and smiling eyes.  
"Yeah we are..." The wizard glanced at Draco, who was looking very flustered with his bag flung over his shoulder, his usually sleek ghost-paled hair slightly unruly. The man recognised the pale features of this scared looking boy, but he just didn't know where to place them.  
"But why don't you come on in, anyway, mate? We're opening soon." He smiled, emptying the last galleons into the money slots. "My name's Martin, I'm the owner. You look new." He held out a hand to Draco who shook it reluctantly. "So, would you like a drink?" Martin asked, gesturing the taps of butterbeer.  
Draco nodded eagerly and let his bag drop to the floor.  
"What can I get you?" Martin asked, leaning over from behind the counter as Draco sat down on one of the stools.  
"Just a butterbeer, please." Draco said quietly.  
The wizard raised an inquisitive eyebrow Draco. "Have we met before?."   
Draco shook his head, a little too frantically. "I've just arrived."  
The wizard nodded in return and handed a butterbeer to Draco. "So what's your name then?"  
Draco smiled politely and took the butterbeer from Martin's hand, before panicking when he heard the question. "My name's..." _Your decoy! Use your decoy, you've been using it for over a year now...  
_"... David."  
The wizard let out a low chuckle. "Do you have a second name, David?"  
Draco coughed on his beer, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "My family are... Asian. We don't use second names." _My family are ASIAN? How in the HELL do I know if they don't use second names or not? Oh, Draco - you fool!  
_The older wizard eyed him suspiciously before sighing and returning to the till. "Very well."  
Draco continued to sip his beer while the wizard cleaned the counter and glasses. "Do you have somewhere to sleep?" He asked suddenly.  
Draco placed his butterbeer down and took a deep breath. "Yes. I'm staying up at Malfoy Manor."  
Draco's words hit the man like cold water, and he suddenly dropped the glass he was holding. "I **knew** it!" He exclaimed, causing Draco to wince. "You're Malfoy's son, aren't you?"  
Draco stood up sharply and picked his bag up from the floor. "I have to go now, thank you for the drink." He said quietly, getting ready to turn out the door.  
"Wait, wait, wait. Slow down, boy." Martin said softly, coming out from behind the bar and placing a hand on Draco's shoulder, who tensed up immediately. "Are you sure you want to be sleeping there? I mean, with everything that's gone on inside that house?"  
Draco turned, his grey eyes shining in the dim light. "I'm deadly sure." His tone was quiet and firm. Martin nodded. "Look after yourself, then. And if there's anything you need, don't hesitate to come back here."  
Draco let his gaze drop before he looked up again at the older wizard. He mouthed a "Thank you." before stepping out the door.

~~~|~~~

  
Harry was stacking the last bag of his belongings in the boot of his car when a very flustered Ron and Hermione arrived. Ron's cheeks were almost as red as his hair as he leant his hands on the top of his thighs to catch his breath. Hermione was similar, her wild hair sticking to her flushed faced, her lips parted, panting for air.  
"Harry... you can't be... serious!" Ron wheezed, standing up straight. Hermione turned to her boyfriend and nodded in agreement.  
"I have to!" Harry replied, shoving down the boot door with a force. "There's a hoard of press outside, after my blood - in case you didn't notice on your way..."  
The pair glimpsed quickly over behind them, where the back door to Harry's block was. They could hear the echo of excited reports voices from where they were standing outside, a whole stone wall away.  
"I'm not going to be gone forever, you know. Just until they get bored and leave." Harry leaned against his car and folded his arms over.  
"Yeah but how long is that going to be, Harry?" Hermione now asked softly. "You know what they're like."  
"Exactly!" Harry replied hotly. "I **do** know what they're like. And I **do** know that they'll make my life a living hell unless I stay away from them. I have to... I can't handle it right now."   
Hermione and Ron exchanged glances before turning back to their best friend. "Alright." Hermione replied shortly.   
Harry nodded, and stood himself up, off his car.   
"Where are you going to go?" Ron asked quietly, stepping towards his friend.  
"Not sure yet. Just away." Harry chuckled humourlessly, running a hand through his unruly locks.  
Before Harry knew what was happening, Ron had folded him into a tight hug, clasping the back of his shirt. "Keep in touch, mate." He whispered into Harry's ear. When he had let go, he looked over to Hermione and smiled. "Don't do anything I wouldn't, Harry."  
"Not in a million years, Hermione." Harry smiled, leaning over her petite form and placing a gentle kiss on her forehead.  
"Well, I... I suppose I should go." Harry said quietly. Ron and Hermione nodded and smiled as they watched Harry step around the car and open the door next to the driver's seat. With a gentle wave and smile, Harry turned on the engine, the sound rattling over the voices from outside. Pulling out from the driving space, he turned around and drove out into the backstreets, and into the night. Gone.  
  
__________

to be continued...

**  
  
**


	3. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

_Title: The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
Author: Miss T  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Genre: Romance/Future-fic/Horror  
Notes: This story is based on one of my favourite adult-books of all time - Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite. The story is not exactly the same, just based around it, although some of it is very similar. I thought it was a good Harry/Draco plot, and I hope you all like it! Please please please take my recommendation of reading Drawing Blood... it really is good.  
_

**The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
**_Chapter Two - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road  
  
You know you can't hold me forever  
I didn't sign up with you,  
I'm not a present for your friends to open  
This boys too young to be singing the blues  
So goodbye yellow brick road...  
I've finally decided my future lies  
Beyond the yellow brick road...  
- elton john - goodbye yellow brick road  
_

Harry didn't know where he was going, but he kept driving. As soon as he had left the outskirts of city London, the roadways seemed to get bumpier and smaller, and there was more greenery - grass, trees, a lake here and there. He was dimly aware of the radio playing in the background, dimly aware that he was humming along to _Goodbye Yellow Brick Road_. Rolling his eyes and looking forward at the trails his headlights made, Harry squinted his tired eyes at the small sign ahead. He was entering a village. Maybe he could stay in a hotel or something until the morning - it had been a long day. He would need to phone Andrew and Doug to tell them what had happened, well... to a certain extent, and tell them to run the shop on their own for a couple of weeks or so.  
Sighing and following the road into the tiny village, Harry was struck by how secluded it was. And how... familiar.  
Shaking his head, Harry parked his car in a small area outside of the main street, taking note that there seemed to be no cars in this village. _ Traditionalists._ Harry thought to himself, shrugging. _Who needs a car in a village this small, anyway? Everything's right at your doorstep.  
_Shoving his keys into his back pocket, Harry proceeded to walk down the narrow lane and into the main part of the village. Glancing at his watch, Harry growled inwardly. _11 o'clock. I'll be lucky if any of the B&B's have vacancies at this time of night.  
_As Harry walked past a small pub, he suddenly felt a strange pang in his throat. _God, I need a drink._ He thought to himself, stopping abruptly and turning back to the squat building.   
Upon opening the doors to the pub, Harry was greeted with the warm mist of pipe and cigarette smoke, of gentle chit-chatting from locals sitting on stools and at tables, sharing drinks and jokes. It was the _type_ of people that made Harry's heart suddenly jump into his throat. Witches and wizards lay in clustered in groups, unaware of Harry's presence, talking happily within themselves. _Grab a beer. Just grab a beer and get the hell out of here.   
_Harry swallowed audibly and advanced to the counter, where he sat on a stool. Digging into his pocket, Harry retrieved a small bag of galleons he always kept with him in case of emergencies. _And here was me thinking I'd never have to use them.  
_"Hello, young man, what can I do you for?" The friendly barman asked as he wiped some glasses clean with a rag.  
"Just a butterbeer, please." Harry muttered, placing the money on the counter.  
"Right you are." The barman replied, flipping the cap off from a butterbeer and handing it to Harry, who drank eagerly. As the thick clouds of smoke and low mumblings of conversation swam around his head, along with the butterbeer, Harry realised how tired he was.  
"You're new here." The barman asked curiously.  
"Yeah. I just arrived." Harry replied, sipping his beer. The barman let out a low chuckle. "You know, I've had this conversation already today. A young man about your age came in earlier this evening in the same state."  
Harry smiled politely, but continued to sip his drink. "Is that so." He replied, his tone uninterested.  
The barman nodded and flung the rag over his shoulder, placing his hands on the counter in front of him and leaning towards Harry.  
"You're not the only famous one to walk through these doors today, Potter." The barman said lowly, smiling. Harry looked up from his drink with wide eyes. "How did you..."  
The barman sniggered. "Name's Martin. What, you think an old chap like me doesn't read the papers? I know you left your home, Harry. Damn shame, that - how they drove you out. I'm surprised you found your way here, though. I recognised you straight away."  
Harry sighed and placed his beer on the counter, looking down at his hands. "I just had to get away from their hounding, you know."  
Martin nodded sympathetically. "I understand. Listen, mate, have you got anywhere to stay tonight?" Harry shook his head.  
"Well... I would say you could stay here tonight, lad - but we're fully booked. You know how it is." Martin said. Harry nodded and fingered at the label on his beer bottle.  
Martin looked around nervously before leaning in again towards Harry. "I don't suppose you could do me a favour, could you Harry?" He asked. Harry raised a questioning eyebrow. "A favour?"  
Martin nodded and folded his arms over. "There's a young man living in an abandoned mansion at the top of the village." Martin explained about 'David' briefly, not running over the finer detail of _why_ he was actually staying in the mansion, and _who_ he actually was. "He has no food, and I'm presuming no running water either. I picked up a few things for him before I opened up today - food, water, some blankets. Do you think you could drive up there and take it up to him? I mean, I have to look after the pub and I don't want him going cold and hungry tonight."  
Harry eyed the barman uncertainly. "Alright." He said after a while. _Here goes the brave Gryffindor front again.  
_"He won't hurt you." Martin laughed.  
"What is he doing there, anyway?" Harry asked, finishing the last of his butterbeer.  
"I think I'll leave that for him to tell you. But don't worry, he's a nice lad."  
Martin motioned Harry towards the back of the bar where he handed him a large bag filled with food, water and blankets. He then gave Harry the directions to the manor - it sounded not too far from here, and it was apparently very hard to miss, anyway.  


Martin was right. The large gates leading towards the mansion were overgrown with weeds and plants, evidence that it hadn't been lived in for a few years. Sighing and rolling his eyes, Harry pulled out the bag from the passenger seat in his blue Ford, locking the door and heading up towards the entrance gates. Something about the motif on the gates sparked recollection in the back of Harry's brain, but weeds covered most of it, so he really couldn't see it properly anyway. Shrugging and walking through the gates, Harry's jaw dropped as he looked at the large white building ahead of him.  
The upstairs windows were all blacked out, along with some of the downstairs ones. The door looked as if it once shone brashly in the daylight sun, but it was faded and looked sad in the night time light.  
When he approached the door, Harry noticed that it was ajar. Swallowing down the lump that had formed in his throat, Harry rapped his knuckles on the solid wood. Clearing his throat, Harry managed a hoarse, "Hello?"  
After thirty seconds and yet no answer, Harry took in a deep breath and let himself in. _Why why why am I doing this? Why do I have to be brave? Why couldn't I have been sorted into Hufflepuff?  
_As Harry let himself into the large entrance hall, it took a second or two for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. Fingering his glasses uneasily as the bag still lay in his arms, Harry cleared his throat again. "Hello?"  
Yet, no one answered. There was a large double staircase in front of him, elegant - but sad and dim looking. Abandoned. Harry suddenly felt a large pang of dread hit the base of his stomach, and decided that he would just set the bag down in the middle of the floor, and get the hell out of this place. There was something _very_ wrong here.  
Just as he was leaning over to place the bag down, a pale form appeared from the left side of the staircase. Harry let out a stifled scream and dropped the bag with a thud at his feet, the sound echoing throughout the halls. The pale figure began to walk down the stairs and out of the darkness towards him, and as the form was washed over with the light from the window, Harry felt his heart stop.  
Draco Malfoy stood shirtless in front of him, long blonde hair the colour of moonbeams spun freely down to his shoulders, grey eyes transparent and wide. There was a clear bottle of alcohol raised in his right hand, and he looked utterly mad. Harry hadn't seen, or spoken to Malfoy since the end of sixth year, where he was mysteriously lifted from Hogwarts. He remembered seeing the papers at the beginning of seventh year, reading about the tragedy at Malfoy Manor, and for a second Harry's brain froze. **_He was in Malfoy Manor.  
_**Harry stood motionless as he couldn't find the words to form on his mouth, couldn't bring himself to speak Draco's name. By the murderous look in Malfoy's eyes, he looked ready to kill. Harry wasn't ready to die. And especially not by the hands of _Malfoy._ Suddenly, Draco snapped his free hand out and grasped Harry's wrist. _Think, Harry think! _Harry thought to himself frantically.   
"MALFOY!" Harry screamed. "DON'T!!"  
Draco wavered for a second, but his grip only got tighter on Harry's wrist. The glass bottle in his hand was still upraised, ready to strike at any given moment.   
_"Malfoy!"_ Harry said feeling his voice quiver. "I got sent here to help you! Don't hurt me!"  
Draco's eyes suddenly became less glassy, and he blinked a few times and let go of Harry's wrist. Taking a step backwards, Draco dropped his arms by his side and looked at the floor.  
"Malfoy? Do you know who I am?" Harry asked attentively.  
Draco's head snapped up and Harry instantly recognised that flash in the pale boy's eyes from years ago. "Of course I know who you are, Potter." Harry's eyebrows shot up in surprise. Draco's voice was quiet and deep, different to when he last heard the whiney tones of his school rival. After a minutes silence, Draco sighed. "You must think I'm mad."  
Harry let out a quite snort of laughter. "A bit." Draco narrowed his eyes and said nothing, so Harry finished his sentence. "It would help if you put that away." Harry nodded towards the glass tumbler still in Draco's clutch. Draco frowned and glared at the bottle, suddenly unsure of how it got there in the first place. "Sorry." He mumbled, placing the bottle on the floor. "I'm sorry." He repeated.  
_Now this is bizarre. Draco Malfoy apologising to Harry Potter. As if my day couldn't get any odder.  
_Harry suddenly felt a pang of sympathy in his heart as he looked at Draco's skinny body. This was not the boy he remembered from three years ago. God, Lucius had really destroyed him.  
"Well, put it this way, Malfoy. That's the only time you've ever apologised after threatening me." Harry said. "There's nothing I can do but forgive you, I'm afraid." Harry tried smiling at Draco, who stood with his arms folded over himself. A small momentary smile appeared on Draco's lips before it faded into oblivion.  
"I can explain." said Draco quietly.

~~~|~~~

When Draco realised what he was doing it felt like the world had come to a standstill. His head felt light and airy, possessed... it wasn't him at all. He didn't know what came over him when he almost attacked Harry, he wasn't even sure he knew it was Harry until his old school rival spoke.   
"I'm okay, Malfoy." Harry said calmly, pushing up his glasses. "You don't have to explain anything."  
Draco noticed that Harry's hands were shaking slightly as he fingered at his glasses and hair, and his face had took on a weird pale glow in the dimness. He suddenly remembered a time back in their second year at Hogwarts, when Harry had been cornered by Mr Filch about the writing on the wall and Mrs Norris - the way his eyes shone like a deer caught in headlights - this is what Harry looked like just now. Scared.  
"No, Potter." Draco said quietly. "I want to talk. I need to."  
Harry shifted on his feet uncomfortably for a few seconds before nodding and chewing on his bottom lip, a habit that hadn't left him since he was 13.  
Draco nodded towards a doorway on the left. "Here, follow me." Draco's voice was distant, but Harry none the less followed the other young man through the door, that led into a large empty room with nothing but a piano inside. Draco then continued to walk towards two large patio doors. "Let's go outside." He muttered as he slid open a door, stepping out into the night. Harry reluctantly followed, and sat down beside Draco on a white stone bench at the front of the garden. Hedges and trees spread out before them, leading out into a large orchard, the light of the moon spilling over the leaves and foliage like silver water. Harry also noted that Draco's shirtless body gleamed under the night's sky, making his skin look almost translucent.   
"You know about my family." Draco said flatly.  
Harry nodded.   
So Draco went into the tale about his version of events, not really knowing why he felt it was okay to tell his arch enemy his sordid secrets, but something about the way Harry was looking at him as he spoke made him feel at ease for the first time in years. It was like carrying a huge weight off his back.  
Once Draco had finished talking, he leaned back against the bench and sighed deeply, closing his eyes. Harry bit his lip unconsciously as Draco's long platinum hair wisped in the wind and fell back behind his neck, exposing his delicate features. "I don't know why I told you that, Potter." He sighed. "You must think I'm even more odd than you already thought."  
Harry couldn't help but smirk. "Possibly." Harry said. "But I understand. I understand what it's like to lose something."  
Draco didn't know what to make of Harry's words. Frowning, he opened his eyes and scanned over Harry's features. Harry was now looking down into his hands. "You know, I never ever thought I would see you again, Malfoy." Harry said quietly, laughing.   
"Likewise, Potter." Draco said, raising an eyebrow and sitting up.   
"And I'm really surprised you're not as hostile as you used to be." said Harry.  
Draco smiled sadly in response. "Maybe there's more to life than pettiness, Potter."  
Harry's eyebrows shot up again in surprise.  
"But it doesn't mean I'm going out of my way to be nice to you, Golden Boy. You're still a prat." Draco finished quickly.  
Harry nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, of course. And you're still an arrogant git."  
Draco smiled. "Absolutely. Old habits die hard, Potter."  
Harry tore his gaze away from his pale companion to look up at the sky. The stars shone silvery blue amongst the velvety blackness, the moon round and full. "So what are you doing with yourself these days, Potter? Auror yet? Working for that damn school?" Draco asked, looking up at the sky with him.  
"No. I live in the muggle world. I work in a music shop." Harry replied.  
Draco turned and faced Harry again. "You live in the muggle world?! You work in the muggle world?! Why?"  
Harry sighed. "I'm fed up of being The Boy Who Lived." He answered shortly. Draco knew that was a statement that begged no questions, so he kept his mouth shut. Maybe another time. _Another time? Draco, you really are crazy. Potter's leaving after this little chat.  
_Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a bashed packet of cigarettes. Pulling one out, he let it dangle between his lips before fishing out his lighter.  
Draco raised an eyebrow. "And since when did we start smoking, Saint Potter?" He asked, humour lacing his voice.  
Harry lit the cigarette and took a deep drag before answering. "Since we forgot how to relax." He replied quietly, taking another drag. Draco raised his eyebrows and smiled, watching Harry puff away, the white smoke plunging out from his mouth and nostrils and fading away into the night.  
"Do you want one?" Harry asked as the cigarette he was currently smoking wiggled between his lips.  
"I've never smoked before." Draco answered, suddenly looking at the open packet with awe. Harry frowned and took the half smoked cigarette out of his mouth. "Here... try it." He said, handing it to Draco, who warily placed it between his elegant fingers. He glared at it for a couple of seconds before looking back up at Harry.  
"It won't kill you." Harry laughed, then frowned. "Well, not immediately." He finished, smiling. Draco continued to look down at the white stick as he placed it between his lips, sucking softly at the tip, feeling the moisture from Harry's lips taint his own. As the smoke filled his mouth it tasted smooth and hot at first, so he immediately breathed it in, letting it fill his lungs. All of a sudden, he realised that no oxygen had gone in with this suck of nicotine, and he let out a chesty sequence of coughs, frowning. Harry laughed.  
"Don't worry, you'll get used to it." Harry said, lighting up another cigarette between his lips. Draco shrugged and took another drag of his own, leaning back and letting the smoke flow out of his mouth with a little more relaxation. "So." He said, taking another drag. "Why are you here, Potter?"  
Harry leaned over Draco as the pale boy lay across the bench. "The wizarding press found out where I live." Harry said.   
Draco pursed his lips together and exhaled through his nostrils. "Don't like the attention, do you, Potter?" He asked rather sardonically.  
"I don't actually." Harry replied flatly.  
"On the run, then?" Draco asked, sitting up again. Harry looked down at his hands, his cigarette still hanging from his mouth.  
"Well I've been hiding from _this_ place for three years, Potter. I got bored." Draco drawled, nodding towards the house.  
"So bored you thought you would make a pretty picture with my carnage against the doorway?" Harry asked, looking up.  
Draco shrugged. "I wasn't expecting company."  
Harry let out a snort of laughter. After a moment or so, Draco returned with a smile, then a little giggle of his own that went straight to Harry's heart. Clearing his throat suddenly, Harry stubbed out his cigarette and straightened his face. Draco continued to smile, and Harry felt very strange... so he shifted around uncomfortably. _Gods, he has changed.  
_"Potter, where are you planning on sleeping tonight?" Draco finally asked after a good few minutes of silence.  
"Err... well, my car." Harry replied, scratching his head.  
"You can stay here if you like." Draco blurted out, before he knew what he was saying. Harry raised his eyebrows and Draco suddenly regretted his words. "That is..." He began.  
"Thank you." Harry replied softly. Draco let a small smile creep onto his face. He cleared his throat and stood up. "Well, I'm going to take a shower... feel free to roam about the house... makes no difference to me now, really." Draco said, as he vanished through the threshold, leaving Harry sitting on his own.   
Harry frowned. This was all so very... odd. But something was keeping him here, and he knew for sure it wasn't Draco. Something he couldn't explain was keeping him from leaving, and Harry didn't know if he liked it. He didn't know if he like it at all.

~~~|~~~

to be continued...

**  
  
**


	4. Pieces

_Title: The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
Author: Miss T  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Genre: Romance/Future-fic/Horror  
Notes: This story is based on one of my favourite adult-books of all time - Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite. The story is not exactly the same, just based around it, although some of it is very similar (lines, sort of plot, etc). I thought it was a good Harry/Draco plot, and I hope you all like it! Please please please take my recommendation of reading Drawing Blood... it really is good.  
Notes 2: Right... OK. I tried to do a *dun dun dunnnn* Sex scene. I'm not used to writing these, so please forgive me if I got it horribly wrong! FEEDBACK on the subject would be fantastic! :)  
_

**The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
**_Chapter Three - Pieces  
_

Before Harry went back inside the manor, he had another cigarette. Stubbing out the end on the bench and throwing it over his head, Harry cautiously made his way inside the house, remembering that he had left all his things back in the car. Swearing softly, Harry shrugged. _I'm sure Malfoy Manor - one of the richest households in England has everything I need right inside, anyway, _his mind told him as he made his way back into the hall where he first saw Draco earlier that evening.   
After an involuntary shudder, Harry sighed and made his way up the left side of the stairwell, stopping slowly as a dim light in the hallway caught his eye. Frowning and letting curiosity get the better of him, Harry advanced on the open doorway where the light was coming from. Raising his eyebrows, Harry felt his breath catch in his throat and the palms of his hands suddenly begin to heat up as he watched Draco's pale form sleep atop the green covers of a bed, dressed in only his boxers. His pale blonde hair spread around his head like a holy nimbus, and he was incredibly still - painfully silent. Painfully... _beautiful._   
When Harry noticed that Draco's window was open, he found himself walking towards the sleeping boy, gently pulling a blanket over him from the foot of the bed. Harry gasped as Draco's sleeping body tensed at first under the contact, before a very faint smile appeared across his features as he actually... **_ purred.  
_**Stepping back from the bed, Harry ran a hand through his dark hair, familiarizing himself with the surroundings of Draco's bedroom. It was then that he noticed Draco's sketchbook lying on his desk next to a pot of quills and pencils. Running a shaky finger along the spine of the book, Harry picked it up and held his breath as he sifted through the pages, holding it under the light from the moon, admiring the beautiful sketched drawings - angels, the gardens, his mother, his _dead_ mother...  
Closing his eyes tight, Harry soundlessly snapped the book closed and placed it back onto Draco's desk, and made his way back out of the room. Harry then found himself back downstairs, inside the large family room. Three large brown leather sofas sat in immaculate condition in the room, a great fire place and coffee table, double windows showing off the most glorious views of the gardens, vases and tasteful interior decorations, all spread around the empty room.   
Harry nearly jumped out of his skin when all of the lights suddenly turned on. _Must be charmed..._ Although his voice of reason didn't convince him, again. Somehow he managed to creep back into Draco's bedroom, where the pale boy was in the deepest of slumbers. Harry noticed Draco's bag sitting in the far corner of the room where the light from the window spilled through - and Harry being as curious as a cat, found himself on his knees, silently examining it's contents. He was greeted with another sketchbook, Draco's wand, a small bag of galleons, a black jumper, toiletries - mundane items of everyday use... a small, worn piece of parchment...  
Harry pulled the parchment out, nervously looking over to Draco, checking he was still asleep before gently unfolding the paper. It was an official document from the Ministry, stamped with the Malfoy family crest - the entire inheritance of the Malfoy fortune, all passed onto Draco. Harry widened his eyes as he held the letter under the moonlight, making sure that the figure he saw wasn't just a hallucination. Harry could have sworn he heard Draco stir, so he hastily folded up the parchment and shoved it back into Draco's bag before standing up.  
Draco sat up straight and rubbed his eyes. "Potter?" he asked croakily.  
Harry backed away from the bag, towards the door.   
"What are you doing?" Draco asked, blinking owlishly.  
"Sorry... curiosity got the best of me. I just came to see how you were." Harry explained quietly, thanking all his god's that it was dark inside the room so Draco couldn't see the sudden guilty flush of his cheeks.  
"Oh." Draco replied sleepily. "Okay."  
Harry frowned, suddenly at a loss for words.  
"Potter?" Draco asked suddenly.  
"Yes?" Harry asked.  
"Could I have another cigarette?" Draco was now fully awake, tucking his legs underneath him. Harry raised his brow and fished out his almost empty packet of cigarettes from his pocket. "Of course..." He said, handing his lighter and a cigarette to Draco. "But I thought they made you cough?"  
Draco lit the cigarette and took in a shaky drag. "They do, Potter... Father used to smoke tobacco... I thought that maybe..." Draco's voice faded away slightly and his eyes glassed over.  
"Yes?" Harry pressed gently, taking a seat on the end of the mattress. Draco sniffed and took another drag before speaking again. "My father used to play piano, Potter. He was the one who taught me actually... Did you know I played? He taught me this piece he composed himself - Noxland. He said that if I ever felt scared, or didn't know who to talk to, I should fly away to Noxland. Anyway, he stopped after Volde... He Who Must Not Be Named died. He stopped teaching me, and instead he got drunk in his office and smoked pipes all day." There was definite bitterness laced with Draco's voice, and he took another drag from his cigarette before stubbing it out on his bedside table. "I thought if it killed him, it might kill me." He finished so quietly, he wasn't even sure Harry heard.  
Harry looked down at his hands.   
"Potter?"   
Harry looked up again, a thick shard of black hair falling across his eyes. "Yes?" He asked quietly, not really knowing why.  
"Why are you talking to me?"  
Harry frowned. "Why not?"  
Draco edged in closer to Harry and tilted his head. "I... I don't understand you, Potter. First I treat you like the dirt on my shoe - all throughout school. Tease you, tease your friends,_ hate_ you. Then when you come here to help me I try to bash your head in with a bottle. Why?"  
Harry's frown deepened. "But you didn't try to bash my head in. You stopped - you didn't even realise it was me."  
"Yeah, but..."  
"Yeah but I should be running off in the distance because you probably would have done it anyway, considering out history?"  
Draco laughed. "Something like that."  
Harry smiled. "I knew you wouldn't have done it. History doesn't repeat itself. People... complications... tend to get in the way."  
The corner of Draco's mouth turned up into a smile, and he nodded slowly. Harry yawned.   
"Malfoy?"  
"Yes?"  
"Do you mind... do you mind if I lie down here?"  
Draco's eyes shifted around nervously for a couple of seconds before he shrugged swiftly. Harry smiled and apprehensively stretched out on his back across the other side of the double bed, where Draco remained sitting cross-legged.  
"Complications, indeed, Potter." Draco sighed finally.   
"Maybe that's all life is... a series of complications. I always happen to be stuck in the middle of them." Harry replied.  
"True. Your in them, I see them." Draco said quietly.  
"You're in them too, Draco. You just handle them differently. I run away from them. You face them like a man." Harry laughed. Draco fiddled with the seam of the sheets for a couple of seconds, biting on his bottom lip. Did Harry just call him by his first name?  
"I don't feel like a man, though. You're the Gryffindor, here. You're supposed to be the brave one." After a couple of seconds, Draco felt a lump lodge into his throat. "I'm scared shitless, Potter." He croaked into the silence.  
"Me too." Harry whispered.   
Draco gasped as something crept up his hand, warm and trembling, grasping onto his fingers gently. Draco nearly pulled away, he could feel all his instincts yelling at him, telling him that this was the touch of his worst enemy. But after a few seconds of mental argumentation, Draco curled his fingers around Harry's. He suddenly realised - Harry was his anchor.  
Draco could feel the palm of his hand buzz against Harry's, the gentle sparks and flow of energy coming from the other boy, beating like a heart, filling him with... _I don't know!_ All he knew is that he didn't want to let go. Not just yet, anyway. Harry's eyes shone in the darkness, filmed over with glassy tears. "What?" Draco heard himself whisper.  
Harry squeezed his hand and then let go. He took in a shaky audible breath before speaking. "Could I... could we... I don't want to sleep on my own tonight." Harry murmured.   
"Me neither." Draco replied. Harry shifted closer to the pale boy, and Draco found himself lying back on the mattress with him. Harry reached out and placed a hand on Draco's shoulder. Without breaking contact, Draco rolled over on his side and shifted backwards into Harry, so that Harry's arm snaked around his shoulders, and his chest pressed lightly against his back. Draco could hear Harry's shallow breaths behind him, feel them kiss the back of his neck in warm wisps. He tensed slightly when Harry pressed his face into the back of Draco's neck, but relaxed after a few seconds. "Are you supposed to be here?" Draco asked, his voice quieter than a whisper. "Is this part of what is supposed to happen?"  
"Fuck supposed to." said Harry. "You make it up as you go along."

~~~|~~~

Harry woke up to find his face buried deep within the back of Draco's neck, the fine moonbeam spun hair clinging lightly to his face, the faint smell of fresh sweat and cigarette's weaved it's way into his nostrils. At some point during the night, Harry had managed to get rid of his trousers and shirt, and he was wearing nothing but his boxers, too. Draco was still fast asleep, the steady rise and fall of his bare chest pressing against the palms of Harry's hands, the gentle beating of his heart drumming out an endless rhythm to sadness.  
Harry felt Draco stir underneath him, stretch and yawn like a cat, rolling over to face Harry sleepily. His grey eyes blinked sleepily, shining in the daylight, almost as translucent as his skin. Harry suddenly realised that he_ liked_ being in bed with Draco. The thought unnerved him slightly, but the sight of this unearthly looking creature grinning sleepily back at up at him suddenly made Harry's heart pound deep within his chest.  
Without a word, Draco stood up and stretched, his arms going out to his sides like an image of Christ. Harry shuddered.  
"Morning." Draco said groggily, before turning on his heel and walking out of the room. Harry frowned and wriggled his way out of the bed and followed the pale boy ahead. Draco proceeded to walk down the stairs, so Harry followed his way, again, letting his curiosity get the better of him.  
As the pair reached the bottom of the stairs, Harry frowned and stopped just outside of the door leading through to the piano room. "Malfoy... stop." Harry said quietly, looking down at a small white gleaming shard of... _something._ Reaching down to get it, Harry picked the object up and held it to the light. It was the most brilliant white, shattered at the end and looking like a flat finger, lost from an expensive statue or something.  
"What is this?" Harry asked quietly, looking up at Draco.  
Draco's body had suddenly tensed up, his nostrils began to flare as he clamped his lips shut. He pushed past Harry, almost knocking the dark haired boy over as he slammed through the door that entered into the piano room.  
Harry cautiously followed the other young man, stepping across the threshold into the other room. Draco lay on his knees on the floor, his fists clenching at his sides with a look of utter disbelief in his eyes. Harry gasped. The piano, the one that once gleamed elegantly in the moonlight filled room, the grand piano that looked centuries old but managed to stay spectacular... was in pieces. It looked like someone had come in and smashed the entire thing up with a hammer, leaving it to crumble on the floor.  
Harry rapidly dropped the broken key to the floor, and turned to face Draco. "Did you... were you..."  
"I was in bed with you all night, Potter!" Draco snarled, answering Harry's question. "I could just as well ask _you_ the very same thing!"  
"Malfoy! I didn't... I couldn't have!" Harry stammered, shaking his head.  
"I know." Draco whispered, looking away from Harry and back at the destroyed instrument.  
"What are you going to do?" Harry asked.  
"Nothing." Draco replied quietly.  
"What?!" Harry's voice asked shrilly. "Aren't you _annoyed_?"  
Draco tore his gaze away from the piano to look back up at Harry. "Well you obviously are, Potter."  
"Why aren't you? It... whatever _it_ is... destroyed your most prized possession and left it here for you to find in bits! How can you _not_ be annoyed?" Harry spluttered.  
Draco sighed. "It." He laughed humourlessly. "It... I think 'It' might be my family."  
Harry nodded. "I think you're right, Draco. And you know what I would do if I were you? I wouldn't give a fuck and get the hell out of here. If it's going to do this to the things you love, just imagine what it is going to do to you?!"  
Draco stood up and narrowed his eyes. "I don't care." He said, his voice dangerously low. "My father gave that piano to me. What if my father wants it back? What if Noxland wants it back?!"  
Harry exhaled impatiently and grabbed Draco's face with his hands, digging his fingers into Draco's temples. "_This..._ this Noxland. And this." He nodded towards the destroyed piano. He gently took his hands away from Draco's face and clasped onto the pale boy's hands. "If you came back here to find something, at least admit what it is. Don't think that this is a place for your music, because it isn't. This place will kill you, Draco."  
Draco felt his top lip quiver. "Maybe I want it to." He replied quietly.  
"Why?" Harry asked.  
Draco stepped back and threw Harry's hands off his. "Leave it, Potter. Just leave it."  
"Why?! Because dear old Daddy did?! Is that why you think it's so fucking romantic? If you do-"  
"Shut the fuck up, Potter! I didn't ask for any of your-"  
"-maybe you ought to think that Lucius just lost his FUCKING PRIDE!"  
Draco snarled, and before he knew what he was doing, he felt his fist connect with Harry's jaw. Harry stumbled backwards and fell on his backside hard, clutching his mouth. Blood poured from between his fingers, and his eyes took on that deer-in-headlights shine again. Harry was scared. And the strange thing was, Draco was enjoying it.   
Draco grabbed a hold of Harry's wrist and yanked it away from the boy's bleeding mouth, lifting his other fist in the air, ready to strike again. Harry's eyes widened and he sunk back onto the floor, a faint whimpering emitting from his lips. _That is what it looks like to be the victim._ Draco thought. _That is what it looks like to be on the other side.  
_Draco stopped.  
_If Father couldn't stand to live without his pride, fine. Just fine. But he didn't have to take anyone down with him. I didn't have to spend my life alone. Mother would have looked after me. Is saying he lost his pride wrong?  
_Draco shoved Harry's wrist away and stumbled backwards, landing on the marbled floor next to his broken piano. Half of himself hoped that Harry would hit him back, the other half screaming for Harry to stay away from him. Because the feeling of having Harry under his mercy... the feeling of Harry's slick warm blood running between his fingers felt so _fucking good..._

_~~~|~~~_

Harry clamped his eyes shut and cowered backwards, hoping that the floor would swallow him up. He never in a million years would have guessed that Draco had such a strength - it was frightening. Hell, it was fucking _ terrifying.  
_Ever since the final battle with Voldemort, and everything else inbetween, Harry had developed a gradual fear of physical violence. He had seen people suffer under the hand of the Dark Lord himself, seen them tortured and torn apart... their souls laid bare as their guts.  
When the second punch didn't come, Harry opened one of his eyes cautiously before letting the other do the same, to find Draco curled in a tight ball on the other side of the floor.   
Snorting in a gob of blood, Harry felt tears stream down his face, mingling with the blood from his lips and nose, dripping onto the floor beneath him. Rubbing his fingers together, Harry could feel the slick warm blood that had first bloomed open when Draco punched him. It felt sticky and thick now compared to the fresh blood that was running down his face. Draco was still lying on the floor, back facing away from Harry.  
_Why do I even risk it? The second someone gets close to a Malfoy, they attack.  
_But wasn't Harry the one who had always faced danger? Always the one who was supposed to laugh in it's face? Harry suddenly realised why he was nearly sorted into Slytherin. He was a fucking _coward._ Righteous and noble, maybe. But at this moment in time - Harry was terrified. Draco, Harry thought, was definitely the brave one here. He was facing his innermost fears here - facing his demons. And Harry was scared - the demons weren't even his own to be afraid of in the first place.  
"You can leave now, Potter." Draco said, his voice muffled, thick with tears.  
"I don't want to." Harry said quietly. "Draco?"  
Draco sniffed and lifted his head up. "What?" His face was reddened with tears, deep streaks of scarlet marring his flawless features.  
"Let's go back to bed."  
Draco frowned and sniffed again, and shook his head slightly. He scanned Harry's expression, covered in blood, but trusting. Harry trusted Draco. Something made him crawl across the floor over to Harry, and grasp onto the other boy's hand. Harry used that grip to pull Draco in towards him in a tight embrace, and all of a sudden - they both let go. Sobbing into each other's hair and necks, Harry and Draco clasped onto one another strongly. After a few minutes, the sobs died down, and the embrace became more gentle. Without stopping to think what he was doing, Draco leaned forward and licked at the blood on Harry's chin, just below his lip. Just a quick flash of pink tongue, gone in a second.  
Harry's eyes widened as Draco leaned back, his grey pools searching Harry's emerald ones. He suddenly forgot how to breathe. After a few more seconds of glaring into one another's eyes, their lips suddenly met together softly - barely even touching.  
Draco could taste Harry's blood between his lips, the fresh blood from his own damage running down into his own mouth. He then felt Harry sigh, his lips pressing slightly firmer onto Draco's. Draco whimpered lightly, opening his mouth to allow their tongues to meet, gently stroking and exploring each other's mouths, minds lost in the moment that seemed to last a lifetime.  
Draco suddenly let Harry go gently to gasp for much needed oxygen. He eyed the other boy questioningly. "What are you doing?" He breathed.  
"I'm sorry..." Harry stammered, his heart hammering in his chest.  
"I'm not." Draco whispered, looking up at Harry through his fallen fringe of silvery hair.  
Harry smiled nervously and brought his hands up to brush Draco's hair back, keeping them on the sides of the pale boy's face. He then leaned into kiss Draco again, more surer this time, letting the kiss start deeply, moaning lightly into the other boy's mouth. Draco responded by grasping onto Harry's shoulders, kneading the skin with his fingers.   
Harry gasped and sucked onto Draco's bottom lip as he lifted them both onto their feet, dragging he and Draco out through the open patio doors. Draco gripped onto Harry's backside as he flicked his tongue through Harry's lips, searching his ex-enemy out, as if all of this dark haired boy's answers were buried deep within the velvety warmth of his mouth.  
Harry let go of Draco's mouth and placed his hands over the blonde boy's crotch, feeling his excitement through the thin silky boxers that Draco wore. "Draco... have you ever...?" Harry asked breathily. Draco shook his head.   
"Me neither." Harry replied. Hesitating only for a moment, Harry grasped his hands underneath Draco's thighs, lifting him up of the ground and shoving him none-too-harshly onto the stone bench. Draco moaned as Harry leaned over him, their erections pressing together firmly. Draco reached up and captured Harry's mouth with his again, sucking softly and slowly at his tongue, grasping onto the hair on the back of Harry's head. Harry began to rub himself up and down on Draco, causing friction in all the right places.   
"Ah... _fuck..._" Harry whimpered, moving his hips faster over Draco's. Draco moaned and hastily gripped onto Harry's sides, pushing him up and down with such force that he began to see stars. "... oh, god..." Draco murmured into Harry's neck. They continued to move, pant and moan, and whimper and curse and swear and come and come... "...fuuuuck..." Harry gasped, collapsing on top of Draco. Draco muttered something unintelligible and closed his eyes, before shuddering into orgasm. After a while, Harry rolled onto his side on the bench and clasped Draco into a spooning position, much like the one they slept in the previous night.  
"I'm sorry I punched you." Draco said after a while.  
Harry sighed against Draco's neck. "It got us this far. If this isn't making up after five years of teenage boy rivalry, I don't know what is." He laughed gently, the waves of his chuckles vibrating onto the back of Draco's neck, running straight into his heart. Just then, a light shower began to fall from the sky. "I guess that's God's way of telling us to clean ourselves up." Draco muttered, sitting up and grabbing hold of Harry's hand. 

Two hot showers and changes later, the boys had found themselves curled back on Draco's mattress, clinging onto each other in a gentle slumber that would take them into the afternoon.

~~~|~~~

to be continued...  
  
  



	5. In The Shadows

_Title: The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
Author: Miss T  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Genre: Romance/Future-fic/Horror  
Notes: This story is based on one of my favourite adult-books of all time - Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite. The story is not exactly the same, just based around it, although some of it is very similar (lines, sort of plot, etc). I thought it was a good Harry/Draco plot, and I hope you all like it! Please please please take my recommendation of reading Drawing Blood... it really is good.  
**Notes 2: a special thank you to all my reviewers so far. I'm so pleased you all like my story *grins*. Without the feedback I wouldn't feel the need to continue! *dramatic pose* :D xxx  
**   
_

**The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
**_Chapter Four - In The Shadows  
_

Draco frowned as a faint growling sound came from Harry's stomach, echoing throughout the quiet bedroom. It was round about 2 o'clock, and the boys had been awake for about half an hour.  
"Are you hungry, Potter?" he said, lifting his head up from Harry's lap. Harry raised his neck and looked down at Draco, smiling slightly. "A bit."  
Draco sat up. "We could go into the the village if you like. You know, for something to eat. There's nothing in here... unless you fancy a nice wholesome meal of dirt and dust."  
Harry laughed and sat up too. "I'd like to go out. That is.. if you want to."  
Draco nodded. "I think we should."

Half an hour later, Draco and Harry were strolling side by side down the small wizarding village. Harry noted that during the day this place wasn't so dissimilar to a smaller version of Hogsmeade - comparable shops and buildings, bars and cafes. Draco suddenly stopped outside a small coffee shop and gazed up at the sign. "I used to go here all the time. They do the best cakes ever. And the coffee is good, too." He said distantly.  
"I can't drink coffee. But I'm sure a cup of tea wouldn't go a miss..." Harry said, nodding towards the entrance. "You want to?"  
Draco nodded and entered through the small doorway. A large glass cabinet filled the entire left side of the wall filled with sweets and cakes, an elderly wizard dozing lazily next to the counter next to it. On the other side of the room, 4 or 5 tables lay scattered across the floor. Two were occupied with witches and wizards politely conversing within each other and drinking coffee. The smell was enough to make Harry's heart beat that little bit faster.  
Draco walked over to the counter and prodded the wizard with his index finger. "Err... sir? Excuse me?"  
The wizard made a most unbecoming snort before snapping back to reality, causing Draco to wrinkle up his nose. "Hello, chaps. What can I do you for?" The wizard suddenly blurted, as if someone had turned on a switch behind him. Draco turned to Harry and exchanged an amused look before facing the wizard again. "I'll have a black coffee and... mmm..." Draco frowned and looked over to the glass cabinet. Harry sighed and folded his arms over. _Draco Malfoy. Even after all the shit that's happened, he's still an indecisive git.  
_"... okay. I'll have a triple chocolate, chocolate chipped muffin and chocolate sauce." He said with a smile. Harry rolled his eyes.  
"I'll just have a tea and a scone thanks." Harry said tiredly to the man.   
"You're so boring, Harry." Draco sighed as they walked over to a table with their things. Harry smiled toothily. Draco frowned through a mouthful of food. "What?!" He asked indignantly, his voice muffled.  
"You called me Harry." Harry said.  
Draco swallowed and took a sip of coffee. "Well, that's your name isn't it?"  
Harry shook his head smiling and continued to drink his tea.

Later that day, after more mulling around the village, Harry and Draco went back to the mansion, deciding that sleep sounded like a good idea even if it was only six o'clock.  
A couple of hours after they had fallen asleep in Draco's bed, Harry woke up with a painful cramp in his bladder. Groaning silently, Harry gently pried himself off Draco's sleeping body and clumsily walked into the hall. The only light provided for his desperate search to relieve himself was that of the tall windows in the hallway. Squinting in the darkness, Harry lazily stumbled naked through the hall, looking through all of the doorways before he found a bathroom.  
When he finally found one, Harry sighed in satisfaction as he let himself go, using his free hand to scratch sluggishly at his hair. Licking his lips, Harry suddenly sobered and realised that he had left Draco alone in his bedroom... sleeping - dreaming of Noxland and his Father, none the less...   
Harry was very much awake now, and he felt his breath quicken in mild panic. _ Okay, okay - it's alright, Harry. Just finish your... err... business, and step calmly out of the room...  
_One thing Harry knew for sure is that he hadn't shut the door behind him when he came in.  
Feeling his breath quicken a further notch, Harry chewed on his bottom lip and let his gaze drop to the door handle. After a few seconds of intense glaring, Harry lunged at the door. The doorknob wouldn't budge, it just slipped through Harry's sweaty fingers. Wiping his hands on his bare thighs, Harry rattled the doorknob again - but still no use.  
Swallowing harshly, Harry tried to heave the door open with all his might, yet still nothing gave - the door was jammed shut. Suddenly, as if the doorknob was made out of roasting flames, Harry let go of it and gripped hold of the hair on his head, pulling at it and panicking as he peered around the darkened room. The expensive bath tiles gleamed in the darkness, the furniture glowing as if brand new. But despite the grandeur of the room, there was just something _so wrong_ about it that made all of Harry's hairs stand on end.  
Averting his eyes from the bathtub, Harry found himself staring into the mirror, seeing his sweaty, glasses-bare reflection panic before him. Without the help of his glasses, Harry wasn't really sure if he saw it or not, but he could have sworn the glass just... _rippled.  
_Harry frowned and leaned in towards the mirror to get a better glimpse at the surface, until his forehead pressed against the cool glass, his bare stomach digging into the sink below him. Every sane voice in his mind was yelling at him to stand back, to get away from the mirror, but something else was drawing him towards it, something Harry listened to. One of the taps from the sink turned on.  
Jumping backwards with a strangled yell, Harry gagged as hot dark liquid splashed up from the tap onto his chest, arms and belly, running down thickly over his moonlight kissed skin. He was covered in dark, decayed blood that was bubbling out of the tap, streaking into the sink and smelling like death twenty times over. Harry let out a muffled sob as he held the back of his hand to his mouth, the heat and smell from the liquid making his eyes water. As he continued to glare at the sink, the other faucet began to twist slowly, and a second liquid began to pour into the putrefying blood - a thin gelatinous fluid that shone white in the darkness. Harry's eyes widened as he suddenly realised what it was as it mingled with the blood, swirling in a fluid circle. The white fluid was semen.  
Harry felt the burning sensation of vomit on the back of his tongue, threatening to spill as he tore his eyes away from the sink and back up to the mirror. Letting out another strangled yell, Harry backed away as his reflection stared blankly back at him - the flesh no longer that golden glow he was so used to, but stark white and paper thin, stretched over his bones like parchment. His eyes were dark and unreflecting, deep shadows beneath them absorbing the darkness of the room. Harry didn't look like the eighteen, almost nineteen year old boy that he was - Harry looked dead.  
He made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded somewhere between a whimper and a gasp, reaching out a shaking hand to touch the glass of the mirror. As he did this, bruises started to appear on his white flesh, blooming over his skin like ink blotches, some purple - some green, some even bubbling with red blood. Harry whimpered in the darkness, his stomach threatening to spill out of his mouth. Harry had never really thought of himself as a good looking bloke, he had always just been thankful that he had been alive more than anything else - not really taking notice that he actually _was_ a handsome boy. Now, watching his face rot away before his very eyes Harry felt his stomach leap, felt the world torn lopsided and in half and the hot sting of tears threatening to spill from his eyes. He watched as his face began to get more and more bruised, and now even white dots began to appear across his skeletal-like features.   
Harry felt an abrupt, burning flare of fury. What the hell was this house trying to prove? How _fucking _ridiculous could the next special effects show get?   
With a piercing yell, Harry grabbed hold of the edges of the mirror and flung it over his head and into the bathtub. The faucets from the sink stopped abruptly as the glass smashed against the porcelain, echoing off the walls and ringing deep within Harry's ears. With shaky hands, Harry began to run his fingers over his face, feeling that familiar eighteen year old skin grace his touch. Looking down at his naked body, Harry saw no bruises or blood - not even the blood that had splashed him from the tap.   
Harry felt his knees buckle underneath him as he held onto the edge of the sink for support, feeling sticky sweat run down his forehead and neck. As he glared into the bathtub, he could have sworn he had seen movement in the gleaming shards of glass - some kind of swinging movement... something made him stare at it, knowing that if he looked away something bad was going to happen.   
Behind him the door creaked open. Harry gasped and spun around, his muscles all on full alert. Draco was framed in the doorway, eyes sleepy and hair messy. "What are you doing?" He mumbled.  
"How did you get in?" Harry wheezed. His mouth was dry and sore from yelling.  
Draco frowned. "I turned the door handle. Why did you shut yourself in here?"  
Harry backed away from the sink and pointed at it.   
Draco's frown deepened as he looked away from Harry and to the sink. "What?"  
Harry looked inside the sink - it was empty and clean again, gleaming in the moonlight. Draco tilted his head and noticed that the mirror was gone, turning around and raising his eyebrows as he saw it in pieces in the bathtub. "Did you..." He said distantly, before his eyes glazed over. Wrapping his elegant fingers around Harry's wrist, Draco yanked hard, tearing his eyes away from the shadows beginning to twist on the wall. "Get out."  
As they fell into the hall, Draco slammed the bathroom door shut behind them, dragging Harry violently down the hall and the stairwell, and into the large family room.   
"Draco? Don't... hey... what?..."  
"Shut up."  
Draco tugged Harry down onto a leather sofa before muttering 'Lumos' under his breath, sitting down on the couch across from him and sinking his face into his hands as light began to flood into the room. Harry saw that Draco's body was shaking, and he stood up to reach out for the other boy's shoulder. Draco recoiled and slapped Harry's hand away. _"Don't touch me, Potter!"  
_Harry stumbled backwards, away from Draco. "Fine! You don't want me here? Your _ghosts_ don't want me here? Fine, that's just fine, Malfoy!" Harry yelled, glancing around the room. He suddenly realised that all of his things, including his clothes were still upstairs. So much for grand exits.  
Draco sighed into his hands. "I do want you here, Harry." He said quietly. "Sit down. I think they want you here, too."  
Harry snorted. "Don't you go telling _me_ what to do-"  
"Harry!" Draco now looked up from his hands, his face red with tears, his features strained with fatigue. "Don't go all proud and _Gryffindor_ on me. Please. Sit down. Talk to me."  
Enraged but still discreetly interested, Harry flopped back down on the sofa. "What do you want to talk about?" He asked through gritted teeth.  
"What did you see in that bathroom?" Draco asked.  
"Lots." Harry replied flatly.  
"Tell me." Draco said, his voice quiet.  
Harry talked through the whole scene - from taking a piss to flinging the haunted mirror in the tub. He felt his anger boil as he went through it - but he wasn't angry at Draco anymore. He was angry at the mansion. Angry at it's scary horror-house tactics - the things you would see in muggle films, pissed off at it's shoddy morality judgements. He wanted nothing more than to knock Draco out, fling him in the backseat of his car and drive him back to his home in London. Even the wizarding press were better than this house of horrors.  
Draco stayed silent for a long time. Harry risked a breath. "What did _you_ see, Draco?" He whispered finally.  
Draco looked up at Harry, his silver eyes shining like endless pools of mercury. "My father." he said.

~~~|~~~

to be continued...  



	6. Adore

_Title: The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
Author: Miss T  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Genre: Romance/Future-fic/Horror  
Notes: This story is based on one of my favourite adult-books of all time - Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite. The story is not exactly the same, just based around it, although some of it is very similar (lines, sort of plot, etc). I thought it was a good Harry/Draco plot, and I hope you all like it! Please please please take my recommendation of reading Drawing Blood... it really is good.  
**Notes 2: a special thank you to all my reviewers so far. I'm so pleased you all like my story *grins*. Without the feedback I wouldn't feel the need to continue! *dramatic pose* :D xxx  
**   
_

**The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
**_Chapter Five - Adore_

_It's you that I adore  
You'll always be my whore  
You're the mother to my child  
And the child to my heart  
We must never be apart  
- smashing pumpkins - ava adore_

Neither Harry nor Draco felt like going back to sleep, so they got changed quickly and sat back down in the family room, talking about anything but the events of the past few hours. Draco was still shaken, so Harry tried his best to cheer him up by talking about music and art, and even had a bash at a conversation about muggle pop-culture. Before long the conversation turned back to the wizarding world, in particular the Ministry of Magic.   
"My father could have been the Minister at one point." Draco sighed. "Before he fucked it up... Voldemort really fucked a lot of people's lives up."   
Harry looked down at his hands and refused to answer, and instead came up with; "Yeah, and where would that leave you? Would the job of Minister be inherited to you along with everything else, too?"  
"How do you know that everything was inherited to me?"  
Harry shifted around uncomfortably, before shaking his head. "What?"  
"I never told you that."  
"Oh. Well, err.. I suppose... err... I suppose I read that document in your bag."  
Draco stood up and in a shot he was over to the other sofa, gripping hold of Harry's shoulder in a painful clench and shaking it vigorously. Harry winced and sank backwards. "Don't you have any _fucking_ respect for PRIVACY, POTTER?!" Draco yelled in Harry's face.  
"No!" Harry squeaked, holding up his hands defensively. "I'm sorry! I wanted to know more about... you know. You. The information was there, so I looked."  
"Potter, I would have _shown_ you-"  
"Yeah, you would have now. But you would never have yesterday. And I wanted to know then, didn't I?"  
"Bloody fantastic." Draco said, loosening his grip and shaking his head.  
"I'm sorry." Harry mumbled. Draco suddenly let go of Harry's grip as the light in the room plunged into oblivion, leaving them in temporary darkness. Draco heard Harry gasp and jump as the room filled with white light again, then back to darkness.   
"LEAVE IT ON!" Draco screamed. "FOR FUCK'S SAKE LEAVE IT ON!"  
The living room stayed dark, and Draco let out a tremendous snarl. "LUMOS!" He yelled. The room again filled with light. "_Leave it."_ Harry would not want to argue with that tone.  
"Let's go back upstairs." Harry said, standing up and placing his hands on Draco's shoulders. He really wanted to say 'Let's get the fuck out of here,' but he knew Draco had been waiting to face this years. If he was staying, Harry was staying, too.   
As they crawled back into bed, they fell into their familiar spoon-embrace, tucked in tightly to one another. _When this is over, you're coming home with me._ Harry thought firmly to himself. _Lucius may have your body, but he can never have your soul. That much I promise you._

_~~~|~~~_

Draco slipped in and out of uneasy sleep that night, clinging onto Harry and screwing his eyes tight. All he could see was the face of his father - Lucius' cold eyes peering at him with that bottle in his hand - mad and erratic, climbing out of the bathtub... but _Harry_ didn't see him. Harry was Draco's anchor, the one thing in this house keeping him from going completely insane, the one thing linking him to the outside world. Draco could not believe the amount of trust Harry had in Draco. _Foolish Gryffindor._ But Harry had more faith in Draco than everyone in Draco's entire life had put together.  
Anyone since Lucius.  
Draco rubbed his face against the back of Harry's neck, inhaling Harry's scent. _How do I know it won't hurt you?_ He thought to himself. _How do I know **I** won't hurt you?_ It was true. That time when he had beaten Harry to the ground - it felt so _good. _Draco felt that Harry had come to be a big patchwork of complications, each waiting to be torn, chewed and ripped apart, tasted and savoured... all because Harry's blood felt so gratifying between Draco's fingers. _How long before I completely tear you apart?  
_

As sunlight sprayed into the room from the gap in Draco's curtains, Draco opened his eyes slowly and turned to face the other boy in his bed. What he saw made his breathing stop to a standstill, and he quickly clamped his eyes shut. Harry was lying sprawled out on the mattress with his hands above his head, his face covered in bruises and scratches. Where Harry's heart was supposed to be beating steadily in the throes of slumber, was a large gaping hole - raw and bloody, seeping like an open bloom.   
Draco slapped a fist to his closed eyes while using the other to shakily feel out for Harry. When flesh came into contact with flesh, Draco ran his hand down Harry's torso, expecting his fingers to plunge into a bloody opening any second, to feel Harry's gore and flesh entwine between his fingers. But the moment never came.  
Instead he felt Harry's smooth chest, his heartbeat beating steadily underneath his fingertips. Harry began to stir underneath Draco's touch, and Draco opened his eyes. He watched as his hand ran across Harry's bare chest as the dark haired boy began to wake.   
Harry opened his eyes and woke up to Draco's weight on top of him, slowly kissing his neck and cheeks. He opened his mouth to say good morning before Draco slipped his tongue between his lips, sliding his hands under the waistband of his boxers and slowly getting him off. _Now this is what I call a wake up call._ Harry thought to himself as he moaned into Draco's mouth, the memories of the previous night slowly evaporating into nothing. Draco slid down Harry's stomach and gently pulled Harry's boxers off, taking him into his mouth. Harry bucked his hips up in surprise and raised his head up from the mattress, running his fingers through his hair and sobbing incoherently. After he came, he cried out Draco's name and collapsed back onto the mattress, mentally going over the past three days in his head. It was amazing how much time can change something, how little you know someone when you thought that you've known them all along. Draco was insane. Draco was beautiful. _Draco is insanely beautiful._ What in the world had changed to make him feel this way? _I've known him for eight years, and I only just met him three days ago.  
_

~~~|~~~

Draco and Harry thought it would be a good idea to get out of the mansion again, and after a shower and change, they were back in the village, finding themselves strolling into Martin's old pub.  
As Draco and Harry entered the pub, they noticed that it was very quiet apart from three more wizards about their age sitting around a small table next to the counter.  
Martin was washing a couple of glasses by the till and smiled immediately when he saw the two young men enter. "Ah, boys. I was beginning to wonder when you two would show up again. I take it you got on with each other, then?"  
Harry and Draco exchanged glances before nodding at Martin and sitting down at some stools near to the table of the other young wizards, whose conversation had suddenly muted as they eyed the two new men.  
One of them, the tallish boy with ash blonde hair and hazelnut coloured eyes nodded to Harry and Draco. "Hi, name's Kerid." he said, shaking hands with both of the young men. The other two wizards had lapsed back into conversation with each other - one with dark chocolate hair and blunt features, the other with long strawberry blonde hair, and a very pretty face. Draco wondered if Harry had noticed.  
The strawberry blonde turned and took one look at the boys before standing up and offering his hand to Harry. "Hullo." he said, his voice almost husky. His eyes shone with appreciation as Harry smiled back. "You're new." he said.  
Harry's smile faded uncomfortably as he noticed the look on Draco's face. "Uh huh. We both are." He pointed his thumb at himself and Draco.   
The blonde boy's mouth curled up into a smile, the glint in his green eyes shining brighter. "Well, you just let me know if you need someone to show you around." Draco didn't like the way this boy emphasised the _you_ part of that sentence.  
Kerid snorted. "This is Chris. And that's Jason." He nodded towards the other young man who smiled dully before turning back to his drink.   
Draco suddenly felt the urge to smash Chris' head to the floor with his fists.  
"I'm Harry, and this is Draco." Harry turned to Draco and placed a hand on his lap. "I think I've seen everything that needs to be seen, thanks anyway, Chris." He said while looking into Draco's eyes. Draco smiled back shyly and they both turned away from the other boys to Martin at the bar.  
"Can I get a Jack Daniels and Butterbeer?" Harry asked Martin.  
Martin eyed Harry suspiciously. "How old are you again?"  
"Err, eighteen. Why?"  
Martin shrugged and handed Harry his drink before taking Draco's order of just a plain butterbeer. Harry didn't notice the look of longing in Draco's eyes as the alcoholic drink was placed on the table.  
"Harry?" Draco said after a while.  
"Yeah?"  
"What do you think of Chris?"  
"Err... I don't know. I've barely spoken two words to the bloke! He's alright, I suppose."  
"I hate him."  
Harry frowned and tilted his head to get a better look at Draco's expression. "Why?"  
"Because of how he looked at you." Draco sulked.  
Harry laughed and took a sip of his drink before speaking. "Don't be a dole, Draco."  
"And because of how you looked at him."  
Harry leant back and frowned before letting out a faint grunt of disbelief. He grabbed onto Draco's hand that lay on the table next to his. "Fuck, Draco!" He hissed, leaning in closer. "Your house attacked me last night. It locked me in the bathroom and made me watch myself _die._ Merlin knows what else it would have done if you hadn't heard and come in. If you really didn't mean anything to me, do you really think I'd still be here?"  
Draco watched as Harry's other hand played with the label of his beer bottle, before growling under his breath and slamming some change on the counter. He yanked his hand out from under Harry's grip and in three strides, he had stormed out of the pub. Five seconds later, Harry appeared on the empty street with him.  
"What is it now?" Harry asked, exasperated.  
"My father didn't love me." Draco said flatly, looking at the ground. "He took Mother with him because he loved her. And he tried to take you last night. He left me here and_ alone _because he didn't love me."  
Harry moved forward and clasped onto Draco's shoulders. "That's utter _ bollocks_, Draco! The only life he had a _right_ to take was his own. He robbed _their_ lives! He robbed your Mother's life!"  
"But if you love someone-"  
"Then you would want them to stay alive!" Harry stopped to take a calming breath. "Draco listen... _listen to me!_" He said, shaking Draco's shoulders so that the blonde boy would look up at Harry. "Lucius may have destroyed your life. But at least he let you keep it. He must have loved you - he must have wanted your life to go on and have _meaning._ If you were dead, you wouldn't have your art and your music, I couldn't be loving you and you wouldn't be wondering about all of this-"  
"What?" Draco blinked.   
"I said you wouldn't be wondering-"  
Draco shook his head and held up his hand. "No... the other part."  
Harry took in a deep breath and relaxed his grip on Draco's shoulders. "I couldn't be loving you." He whispered. Harry didn't even realise what he had said first time around, but now that these words were out, he didn't want to take them back, no matter how alien they sounded in his mouth.  
Draco felt his heart leap into his throat at that moment. "I love you too." he managed to say, before leaning in and kissing Harry tenderly.  
When they pulled apart, Harry kept hold of Draco's shoulders. "I've never been in love with anyone before." Draco murmured. "Me neither." Harry replied softly, his eyes shining brilliantly green in the daylight.   
As crazy as it was, Draco meant what he told Harry. He had never felt this way for anyone before, and he wasn't even sure if it _was_ love that he was feeling, but it was definitely something. And to fall in love with your worst enemy was as senseless as you could get, but as nothing really made sense to Draco at all, it seemed the most sensible thing in the world.

~~~|~~~

Hermione Granger twiddled her thumbs as she sat on the warm leather sofa, chewing on her bottom lip and boring holes into the cup of coffee that lay on the table in front of her with her eyes.  
"Ron, he still hasn't given us any word. I'm worried about him."  
Ron sighed and switched the telly off, turning to his girlfriend. After Hogwarts, Hermione had moved into a muggle flat in London not too far from Harry's, and it wasn't a long way from the Ministry of Magic where she worked as a Magic Historian. Ron often visited his girlfriend from his home at The Burrow, where he was currently helping his father with his job as Minister of Magic.   
"Well, what can we do, Hermione? We don't even know where he is."  
Hermione clicked her fingers impatiently. "I know! What if he's... oh, god, Ron - what if he's in trouble?"  
Ron folded Hermione into a deep hug. "Don't be stupid. This is Harry we're talking about. He won't be."  
Hermione let go of her boyfriend. "A locator spell." She murmured, her eyes darting about wildly. "Surely we can perform a locator spell and find him, can't we?"  
Ron sighed and smiled, running a warm hand through his girlfriend's hair. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe Harry _likes_ where he is? Maybe he doesn't want to be located."  
Hermione frowned. "Ron! Harry is our best friend! He wouldn't just drop everything to go and live somewhere else without telling us first!"  
"I suppose your right, Hermione." Ron said.  
"I'm going to get my books out tonight, Ron. This worry has gone on too long."  


~~~|~~~

to be continued...


	7. Judas Root

_Title: The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
Author: Miss T  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Genre: Romance/Future-fic/Horror  
Notes: This story is based on one of my favourite adult-books of all time - Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite. The story is not exactly the same, just based around it, although some of it is very similar (lines, sort of plot, etc). I thought it was a good Harry/Draco plot, and I hope you all like it! Please please please take my recommendation of reading Drawing Blood... it really is good.  
**Notes 2: a special thank you to all my reviewers so far. I'm so pleased you all like my story *grins*. Without the feedback I wouldn't feel the need to continue! *dramatic pose* :D xxx WARNING: I can't stress this any further, but there is a very STRONG scene of sexual nature in this chapter. Very strong indeed.  
**   
_

**The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
**_Chapter Six - Judas Root_

Draco sighed and stretched his back as he sat alone in the coffee shop, his fingers aching from sketching inside a notebook he found in the back of Harry's car. Several empty cups of coffee lay around him, and he was just finishing off his latest cup of black. Sifting through the pages, he noticed that Harry had already used this pad to doodle in, _Hermione's Flat - 0171 432791... Remember bread and milk!... Dentist appointment 5.30 Tues...   
_Sipping the last of his coffee, Draco mulled over the endless list of Harry-drabbles, wondering if he encrypted their weird Muggle-code he might get to know Harry better. But he knew that no matter how hard he tried, the Muggle world would make no sense to him.   
As Draco gestured the old wizard for another coffee, he turned to a new, unblemished page in his notebook, and began to write.  


_**Facts  
**- It makes things appear (Bottle, lights)  
- It makes us have visions (Bathroom, piano, this morning in bed)_

_**Theories  
**- It really did destroy my piano to make me angry  
- It made us hallucinate the pieces  
- I am completely deranged and this whole thing is a figment of my imagination  
- It can do whatever it wants, and is playing games with us  
- It can only do a few things in order to communicate with me, in any way it can_

As Draco leaned back and admired the page, Harry walked out of the bathroom and sat down next to Draco. Draco quickly closed the book. "Hi..." Harry started, leaning over the book. "... what's that? Can I see?"  
Draco sighed and pushed the book over to him, opening it back to the page he was on. As Harry read through the list, he nodded, then frowned suddenly. "What did you see in bed this morning?" he asked.  
"That I had ripped your heart out when we were asleep." Draco replied quietly, looking down at his hands.  
"Oh." Harry replied, biting on his bottom lip and turning to face Draco. "This morning?"  
"Yeah." Draco replied.  
"But... but you woke up wanting to... you know."  
Draco shrugged. "I know."  
Harry stayed silent for a while before closing the book shut and smiling. "You want to go back to the pub for another drink? I think it's starting to get a bit busier. It'll... err, take our minds of things a little."  
Draco nodded. "Yeah... yeah I'd like that. But you go on ahead. I'm going to drop this off back at the Manor, I won't be ten minutes."  
Harry looked apprehensive at first before he nodded and smiled. "OK, you do that - I'll have a butterbeer waiting at the table for you." Draco smiled as Harry leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the lips before leaving the shop.

The house was awkwardly empty when Draco stepped inside, stopping suddenly at the open door to the piano room. Dropping the sketchbook on the hall table, Draco slowly walked through to the room and saw his piano... _ completely whole...  
_Without thinking what he was doing, Draco reached out and slammed his fist into the keys of the piano, the sounds echoing throughout the airy room in harsh clunks of mismatched notes.   
"HOW DOES IT FEEL, FATHER?!" he screamed above the noise. "HOW DO YOU LIKE SEEING YOURSELF TORN APART?! DO YOU EVEN **CARE?!!**"  
Draco stopped pounding as his fist felt like it was ready to burst, and sat down with a thud on the hard floor. He felt a rapid wave of exhaustion wash over him. Standing up slowly, Draco backed out of the room and made his way back to the village.

~~~|~~~

At the pub, Harry sat at the counter and was beginning to get worried about Draco. The three wizards they had met earlier were still there, and were currently sitting around the raven haired boy, conversing with him.  
"So, you're the Boy Who Lived, then?" Chris' husky voice said next to Harry. Harry felt the pit of his stomach drop and he turned a narrow gaze at Chris. "Yeah. So?" He retorted, not caring how rude he sounded.   
Chris chuckled. "You're a little younger than me, and I don't think I'd be able to handle the crap you've been through. You're very brave." Chris' eyes shone as he edged closer to Harry.  
"How old are you?" Harry asked, frowning slightly.  
"Twenty-two." Chris replied, lifting his bottle to his mouth and making a show of licking the excess beer away from his lips. Harry felt a spark of frustration towards Chris. He had to admit that the boy was attractive, and he was a nice enough bloke, but he just didn't give a fuck that Harry had a boyfriend. Maybe Chris didn't pick up on the fact that Harry and Draco were together? Harry didn't know, but something inside of him was actually _warming_ towards this strawberry blonde. And he didn't like it.   
Putting some change onto the counter, Harry stood up and nodded at the other three young men. "Well I suppose I better be off then," he mumbled before stepping out of the door.  
Draco had just stepped towards the entrance when Harry came stumbling towards him. "Wha-Harry?" He asked, grabbing onto Harry's sides to steady himself.  
"Draco! There you are. I was starting to get worried..." Harry said, folding Draco into a hug. "Come on, let's get inside."

Two hours later, Harry and Draco were back inside the pub, drinking (well, Harry anyway) and talking with Chris, Kerid and Jason, plus a couple more wizards who were friends with the other three - a petite redheaded witch called Haley who bared such resemblance to Ginny Weasley it was scary, and a slender coffee coloured skin wizard named Jordan. After three or so drinks, Harry's bladder began to pang painfully, and he headed to the bathroom at the back of the bar.   
As Harry relieved himself, he realised that he was slightly drunk, the stark light of the empty lavatory buzzing around his head and making everything look somewhat lopsided. Harry jumped as a muffled knock sounded at the door.  
"Yeah?" Harry asked.  
"It's Chris."  
Harry chuckled to himself. How convenient Chris happens to show up when Harry is alone with his dick out. Grinning and readjusting himself, Harry walked over to the door and opened it a crack to see a flash of golden-strawberry hair and a sparkling green eye.  
"Just wanted to see if you were finished. I have to go too."  
Harry opened the door and let Chris in, turning to leave the toilet. Chris stepped right up to the urinal, tugged down his trousers, and whizzed away. _ Hmm, so he really did have to pee.  
_But as Harry was halfway out of the door, Chris said. "Hey, Potter?"  
"Uh huh?"  
"I meant what I said earlier. About you being really brave."  
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Well.. err, thanks." he replied.  
"Don't mention it." Chris purred, pulling up his trousers, turning around swiftly and holding Harry up against the opposite wall.  
Chris slid his hands underneath Harry's thin t-shirt, running them up his chest and grazing his thumbs over Harry's nipples. Harry gasped and found himself instantly, illogically aroused. Chris lips brushed against Harry's. "Do you want this as bad as I do?" he whispered, his hot breath kissing against Harry's skin. Harry's drunk mind didn't know what to think of the situation, and that little part of him that said he did want Chris was getting bigger and bigger by the second. Amongst other things.  
Chris' mouth found Harry's, sweeping his wet tongue over Harry's lip before claiming it between his teeth and nibbling softly. For a millisecond Harry didn't respond, before he felt his body grinding into the taller boys, his tongue wrestling against Chris' in careless recklessness. As Chris' erection pressed into his own, he suddenly wondered what in the _hell_ he was playing at.  
Harry's shame boiled over at this point, and he broke the kiss and pushed Chris away. He knew he didn't want this.  
"Sorry." he said. "I can't."  
Chris chuckled. "Of course you can." Chris tried to press himself back against Harry, but Harry held his hands up and backed away. "No. I can't. I have a boyfriend, and you _knew_ that I did."  
Chris stepped back and shrugged, but Harry could see that he was hurt. "Sorry. But I saw you... looking at me. Just wanted to show that I cared."  
Harry smiled. "I know I was looking. Of course I was, you're gorgeous. But I'm with Draco, alright? We're solid. I love him."  
Chris snorted. "You fall in love pretty fast, don't you?"  
"Not really. It took me eight years."  
"Aren't you scared he'll go all psycho and slaughter you in your sleep?"  
Harry laughed. "No. If Draco chooses to kill me, he'll make sure I'm awake for it."  
Chris frowned and measured Harry's words suspiciously. "Okay." He said finally. "Want to kiss me one last time?"  
"Yes." Harry told him honestly. "But I won't."  
Pushing past the strawberry blonde, Harry left the bathroom and made his way back to the pub.

Harry sat down back beside his boyfriend and kissed him gently on the cheek. "Hi." he whispered into Draco's ear.  
Draco grinned and turned to face Harry. "Hi."  
"Let's get out of here." Harry said, rubbing his nose against Draco's.   
Draco let out a sigh of relief. "Yes. Thank you."  


~~~|~~~

When Harry and Draco got back inside the house, Harry noticed that the piano room door was open. Taking a quick peek inside as Draco put their cloaks on the hat rack, Harry frowned and stepped back. "Draco... did you know that your piano is-"  
"Yes." Draco replied shortly.  
"But that's good, isn't it?" Harry asked, stepping closer to the blonde boy.  
"No. It... he's... it's fucking with us, Harry." Draco said, pursing his lips together. Harry looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry."  
"Don't be."  
Draco could still smell the alcohol from Harry's breath, and the aroma of it was intoxicating. "I wonder if there's anymore alcohol in this house." Draco mused aloud.  
"What? Why?" Harry asked suddenly, frowning.  
Draco shrugged. "I've never really been drunk before. It sounds like a good way of escaping."  
Harry laughed. "Yeah, until you wake up in the morning with a pounding headache and vomit covered sheets."  
Draco screwed up his nose. "But that doesn't happen to you when you're drunk, does it?"  
Harry tilted his head and considered the question. "Not always. It depends on how much I have or what sort of mood I'm in."  
"What about drugs?" Draco asked.  
Harry pulled a face. "What about them?"  
"Do they help you... escape?" Draco replied quietly.  
"I wouldn't know, I've never really had much experience." Harry answered honestly.  
"My father used to take them, up in his office. He thought I didn't know about it, until I found some in his desk drawer one day. Root of Judas, wrapped in a tiny cloth bag. Makes you hallucinate apparently. I wonder if they're still there."   
Draco turned his vision to the stairwell. "Want to see?"   
But before Harry could answer, Draco was already pounding up the stairs in the direction of his Father's office, so he had no choice but to follow suit.   
Draco walked into the large office, scanning over the furniture in the evening darkness. He glided over to the desk and sat down at the large leather chair behind it, and Harry proceeded to sit on his knees in front of him. Draco pulled open a small drawer at the top of the desk, and laughed out loud. "I don't believe it!" He chuckled, reaching his hand inside the thin drawer and pulling out a small cloth bag. "They _are_ still here."  
Curious now, Harry sat up straighter and watched as Draco emptied the bag's contents onto the desk - four little rods that looked like white, soft cinnamon sticks.  
"I wonder if they still work." Harry heard himself breathe.  
"I don't know but I still want to try them." Draco said, waving his fingers above the four little roots.  
"Eat them, then." Harry said.  
"Are you going to eat any?"  
"Well..." Harry ran a hand through his unruly hair. "What exactly happens if you do eat them?"  
"Apparently you see all kinds of stuff - beautiful hallucinations, weird buzzes like if you were pleasantly drunk, and they say that you get loads of inspiration from them, too."  
Harry grunted a small chuckle. "Sounds like sex."  
Draco smiled shyly and looked down at Harry. "We can do that too, if you want."  
Harry smiled back and moved his hand from his own hair and into Draco's, pulling him down for a wet, sated kiss.  
"I was also thinking it could maybe make me see things that are always here, but I can't actually see now." Draco said.  
"As in here in the Manor?" Harry asked.  
Draco shrugged and nodded.  
Harry's lip began to twitch worriedly, and he placed his hand on Draco's knee. "Draco... I don't think we should take these inside the house. Maybe we could go outside or something, or back down into the village. I don't know if I want to get high inside the house."  
Draco glared at Harry. "What?" Harry asked.  
"Keeping in mind what I came here for, what I came back to this house for, do you really think I'd consider doing it anywhere else?" Draco said.  
"I suppose not." Harry replied quietly. "But Draco... it really isn't a good idea."  
"What do you mean?"  
"You know I'm going to have to go back home eventually. And I know you must have at least thought about leaving with me."  
"Yeah, and?"  
"Maybe it doesn't want you to leave, Draco."  
"Well then maybe I don't want to."  
Harry felt his breathing stop momentarily, the full throw of Draco's words felt like a punch in the stomach. "If you stay here," Harry stopped, taking in a deep breath as his voice cracked. "If you stay here, I might not be able to see you again. Is that what you want?"  
Draco tore his gaze away from Harry and stared at the roots in frustration, his knuckles going white as he clung onto the desk. He finally looked back down at Harry, his grey eyes shimmering with tears. "No."  
"Me neither." Harry whispered. Their hands found each other on the desktop and their fingers entwined. "You could eat them here, if you want. Then go outside or through to the village. I wouldn't mind being here alone." Draco said.  
Harry let out a humourless laugh. "No way. You really don't want to be alone in here."  
"I don't mind, Harry."  
"I'm staying." Harry said softly.  
"So," Harry said after a while. "How do we do it? I was never really good in Herbology. Do we just eat them?"  
"I think so," Draco replied, shifting two of the roots over to Harry's side of the desk, leaving the remaining two for himself. He picked up one and chewed experimentally at the end. "They don't really taste like anything." He commented.   
Harry looked down at the two white rubbery sticks on the desk, raised an eyebrow as he picked one up in a mock-toast. "Here goes." He muttered, as they both began to shovel the roots into their mouths. Draco winced and clicked his tongue at the back of his throat once he had finished swallowing. "Ugh! They were fucking horrible!" He exclaimed. Harry nodded in agreement as he felt that last rubbery shred of root fall down his throat.  


Once Draco and Harry had finished eating the roots, they had decided to get into Draco's bedroom. Draco felt the first little reaction from the drugs ten minutes later, when Harry was lying with his head on Draco's stomach. He could feel tiny trickles of electricity run through his veins ever so subtly as he ran a lazy hand through Harry's hair, looking up at the dark ceiling of the bedroom.  
"Can you feel that?" Harry asked suddenly.  
"Yes."  
"Are you hallucinating?"  
"I don't think so." Draco replied, continuing to stare up at the ceiling where little blue and purple swirls of mist began to appear. "Well, a little."  
He then pulled Harry up towards him, running his hands through Harry's unruly hair and kissing Harry's temple. He felt Harry tremble under his touch, and leaned in to kiss his lips softly.   
Harry's tongue drew lazy circles around Draco's lips, entering his mouth and gently stroking his own tongue. His hands were running gently down Draco's sides, smoothing down the flesh of Draco's chest as his tongue ran from his lips and down to his chin, moving to Draco's thin collarbone. Draco let out a long groan as Harry circled his tongue wetly around one of his nipples, nibbling with his teeth. The room was getting darker and darker, and Draco felt like he was falling into a great void of nothing. Gasping, he gripped onto Harry's shoulders and held him tightly as the purple and blue lights grew intensely on the walls, buzzing like electric, beating veins.   
"It's okay," Harry said softly, "Keep holding me, you'll be okay."  
"Can you... do you... " Draco had no idea what he was twittering on about, and he began to tremble.  
"Draco, just relax. Look at the lights." Harry said breathily. "Everything feels amazing. I love you."  
"I love you too... but it's so odd..."  
"I think it's supposed to feel strange. That's what drugs are for. Just relax and let it take you."  
Draco made a soft whimpering noise as Harry continued to lick at his throat and chest, circling their hips together. Harry began to make a trail of butterfly kisses along Draco's arm, stopping as he saw a group of faint white scars along the pale inner elbow. Licking his lips, Harry wondered what it would feel like to have Draco's blood running down his throat, to taste him... he sucked hard on the flesh, making Draco writhe helplessly underneath him. Before he knew what was happening, the scars began to open up under his tongue, spilling hot coppery blood into his mouth.  
Draco gasped as he felt a tight throbbing sensation in his arm, beating like a dull heart. Harry lifted his head, his mouth shining red with Draco's blood. Draco looked down and saw that his old scars were opening like blooming flowers, yawning like little red mouths. Harry glared back at Draco in terror as he realised the blood was real. "Draco... what...?"  
But Draco felt bizarrely calm - the cuts didn't hurt, much like they didn't hurt when he made them. "It's nearly there." He murmured.  
"What?"  
"Noxland."  
Harry's jade coloured eyes shone in the darkness, his lips glowing with saliva and blood. Draco used his grip on Harry's shoulders to pull them face to face. He kissed Harry's bloody lips. "Don't be scared."  
"But... aren't you bleeding?"  
"Not for long."  
"Draco! Don't pull this supernatural crap on me!" Harry pounded his fist into the mattress. "Don't you _dare_ die! I swear to Merlin if you do die I'll come after you and haunt _you!_"  
"I'm not dying, Harry. Come here, hold me." Draco wrapped his arms around Harry's slender body, felt his blood trickle down Harry's back.  
"You're my anchor." Draco whispered, knowing that Harry didn't hear him.  
Draco wasn't really sure where he was going, or even how. He knew it had to be Noxland, the land deep within his father's heart. It was a place of wounds that have never healed, and he needed to know _why.  
_"Just don't leave me here." Harry murmured into Draco's neck.  
"I won't." Draco replied distantly. He then looked deep into Harry's eyes and pressed their chests together, wrapping his legs around Harry's skinny hips. "I want you to fuck me." he said.  
"What?" Harry gasped, his eyes widening. "Now?"  
"Yes. Now."  
Flashes of emotion skidded past Harry's features; puzzlement, sorrow, anxiety, frustration, arousal. Draco could feel Harry's erection grow hard against his own. Thumbing his fingers underneath Harry's boxers, Draco yanked them down to Harry's ankles before pulling down his own underneath him. Harry gasped. "Are you sure?" He breathed.  
Draco locked his gaze with Harry's eyes and took Harry's hand, dipping his fingers into his mouth and sucking hard. Harry's breath came out in pants as he allowed Draco to wet his fingers before he careful slid them into the other boy, waiting until Draco relaxed fully before entering.  
Draco reached up and captured Harry's mouth, sucking forcefully at the raven haired boy's tongue, finding himself having to break away from Harry's lips to let out a blood curdling yelp as Harry sank deeper inside him. Harry moaned painfully against Draco's neck and bit down lightly on his flesh. "Does it hurt?" He murmured into Draco's blonde hair.  
"Yes." Draco replied breathily. "But you can fuck me hard. You can open me up."  
Harry frowned and lifted his head up, nearly coming at the sight before him; Draco's head was tilted back against the pillow, his pupils dilated in desire, his lips red and swollen from kissing. Harry felt a sudden sweep of exhilaration wash over him. "Yeah?" Harry asked, tilting his body upwards and pushing his hands down onto the mattress above Draco's head. He began to move in and out of Draco, feeling his eyelids flutter open and shut.  
Draco groaned and bucked his hips into Harry's. "... ahh... harder... " Draco growled, groping for Harry's hand and putting it on his erection. Harry closed his hands around it as his other hand squeezed tightly onto Draco's.  
"Draco I don't want to hurt you..."  
"Harder!" Draco sobbed. "I have to get there!"  
"WHERE?!" Harry grabbed hold of Draco's face and tilted his chin towards him, forcing Draco to look into Harry's face. He continued to pound in and out of him but his eyes were round and huge with worry. "WHAT ARE YOU MAKING ME DO TO YOU?!"  
Draco felt the effects of the drugs and pleasure pound together, the light from the whirlpool above his head get bigger and bigger. He knew that if he went to Noxland, he would find out all of the answers, and it was now or never.  
Draco let himself go.

~~~|~~~

to be continued...  



	8. Noxland

_Title: The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
Author: Miss T  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Genre: Romance/Future-fic/Horror  
Notes: This story is based on one of my favourite adult-books of all time - Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite. The story is not exactly the same, just based around it, although some of it is very similar (lines, sort of plot, etc). I thought it was a good Harry/Draco plot, and I hope you all like it! Please please please take my recommendation of reading Drawing Blood... it really is good.  
**Notes 2: a special thank you to all my reviewers so far. I'm so pleased you all like my story *grins*. Without the feedback I wouldn't feel the need to continue! *dramatic pose* :D xxx   
**   
_

**The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
**_Chapter Seven - Noxland_

"Draco? _Draco?! FUCK'S SAKE, DRACO!!"_ Harry pounded his fist into the pillow beside Draco's head, but Draco didn't turn - he didn't even seem to see or hear Harry at all.  
Harry numbly reached out to Draco's neck to search for any signs of a pulse, but it was there - strong and steady. Draco's eyes lay open and unfocused, and did not blink when Harry waved his hand before them. They looked vacant, lost.  
"Draco?" Harry whispered, his voice thick with unshed tears. "Draco? Remember, you promised not to leave me here."  
Draco didn't answer. He didn't even move.  
"Draco?... _please?"_ Harry pressed his lips against Draco's, but the blonde boy didn't respond. It was like kissing a warm corpse. He grabbed a hold of Draco's skinny shoulders, shaking them vigorously. But Draco's head rolled back on his neck, unresponsive... dead.   
Harry let out a muffled sob and clawed at his own unruly hair, pulling at it violently. Why in the _hell_ did he allow Draco to take those roots?! Here of all places! Suddenly, he remembered what Draco had said. _I have to get there._ Had Draco used the jolt of orgasm to detach himself from his body? Was his spirit somewhere above Harry's head? Or worse, was Draco no longer here at all? What if Draco was lost?  
If Draco had landed somewhere else, Harry thought to himself, Harry had to follow.  
But how was Harry's spirit supposed to leave his body without him having to actually _die_ first? He concentrated feverishly, even trying to make his mind communicate with Draco's. But nothing gave, even after pulling out his own hair in frustration, trying to rip his soul out of his body. Harry collapsed on top of Draco, his face pressing against the fresh film of sweat on Draco's torso that smelled of smoke and faintly of coffee.  
_Coffee...  
_Harry had a dangerous idea.  
Kissing Draco's skin tenderly, Harry stood up and buried his face into the pale blonde hair of Draco's head. "I love you, Draco. I'm coming to get you." He murmured into Draco's ear as he pushed himself off the mattress and clumsily walked over to the other side of the room. He found Draco's bag lying where he usually kept it - underneath the window and pulled out a slender silver flask. Earlier that day in the coffee shop, the elderly man who owned it gave Draco this flask filled with coffee, due to the copious amounts of coffee Draco had bought and consumed that afternoon. Harry wrapped his fingers around the top of the flask and flung it to the ground. Running over to Draco's side, Harry held the flask under Draco's nose. "Draco? Want some coffee? C'mon.." Harry lifted Draco's neck up and wafted the flask under his nose, but the blonde boy made no response.  
Harry sighed and looked into the flask, feeling his heartbeat move up a notch. Harry took a deep breath and said a silent prayer to his all his Gods before raising the flask to his lips with a shaky hand and drinking the entire contents of the bitter coffee straight down.

~~~|~~~

Draco could feel his spirit letting go, rising above his body, and the walls around him slowly began to materialise. Everything was disappearing around him and he knew he had made it - he was there. It had worked.  
Slowly, the sensations of his limbs began to return, and he opened his eyes to find himself standing at the end of a large hedge opening. _A maze._ Everything was in black and white apart from the deep blue of the sky above him that seemed to be moving to a different rhythm than normal - the clouds swept by in torrid speed, although there was no sound. Everything was completely muted apart from the beating of Draco's own heart. Draco took in a deep breath to brace himself, and headed forwards, placing his hands inside his pockets. _ Pockets? But I was lying naked in bed with Harry...  
_Looking down at himself, Draco saw that he was wearing black wizards robes, and a cloak lined with green velvet. It was an outfit he'd seen his father often wear, and was wandering why he was currently wearing something that belonged to his dad. Lifting his hand up to his hair, Draco felt that it was tied into a ponytail at the back of his head with a little velvet bow, _just like Father's...  
_Draco kept walking. He followed the straight pathway ahead of him, smelling the faint aroma of coffee. Frowning, he sniffed again, but in an instant the smell was gone before he could distinguish where it had come from.  
Draco could see a small gap in the hedges in the distance, and he quickened his pace to get to it. Stepping through the gap, Draco entered a small rounded courtyard with a fork pathway, white stones littering the ground. In the middle of the courtyard was a large fountain, and sitting on the rim of the fountain was a tall, hooded figure. Draco gasped and stepped backwards as the hooded figure stood up and advanced on him, his arms upraised. "Don't run." The figure said, and Draco fairly recognised that drawling, nasally tone. The hooded figure clasped onto both sides of it's hood and pulled it down, revealing it's face. It was Professor Snape.  
"Professor?" Draco asked uncertainly. Snape looked down at Draco, his top lip curling into an unpleasant smile. "Don't run, Mr Malfoy." Snape said again. Draco frowned and let out a stifled yell as Snape grabbed a hold of Draco's wrists and tugged them out of his robes. "I'll be needing some tonight, Draco." Snape said calmly.  
"Some what, Professor?" Draco asked, his voice shaking. "I don't have anything!"  
Snape frowned and looked at Draco as if he were a fool. "What do you mean? You have _these_." Snape persisted, shaking Draco's wrists before using one of his hands to plunge into his own robes and pull free a small vial with a needle inside it.  
"I'll be needing it now, Draco." Snape said, staring at Draco's bare wrists.  
"I don't have anything!" Draco repeated.  
Snape's frown deepened and he stepped backwards, letting go of Draco's hands. "I do know you, right?" he asked apprehensively.  
"Err..." Draco didn't really know what to say.  
"You _are_ a Malfoy, right?"  
"Yes."  
"Then I will be needing it tonight, Mr Malfoy! Don't make this any harder than it already is! Just roll up your sleeve and get it over with."  
"Why?"  
"The family mercury." Snape replied, eyeing Draco's wrist hungrily.  
"You want my _blood?"  
_Snape tore his gaze away from Draco's wrist and looked him straight in the eye, nodding slowly.  
"If I do give you some, will you tell me where Lucius is?"   
Snape nodded again.  
"Will you take me to him?"  
"Yes." Snape said. "He's been expecting you." Snape's mouth twisted into an ugly smile.  
"Okay." Draco said finally.  
Snape led Draco over to the edge of the fountain, and they both sat down. Draco pulled off his velvet lined cloak and dropped it to the floor, rolling up the sleeve of his dark black robes. The cuts on his arms were still open, bleeding down his arm slowly. Snape eyed the blood keenly and uncorked the vial, taking out the small needle. He then re-corked the bottle, placing the needle into the cork so that it looked like a fat syringe with no plug. He grabbed a hold of Draco's wrist.  
"Is it clean? I don't want anything dirty sticking into my arm."  
Snape chuckled softly. "No, that's not where you like to stick dirty things, is it?"  
Before Draco could reply, Snape had stuck the needle into one of the open cuts on Draco's arm, and a sharp buzz of pain shot up the nerves in his flesh. Snape then ran his other hand over the bottom of the vial, and it slowly began to fill with deep red blood. Once the vial was full, he pulled the needle out of Draco's arm and uncorked the bottle impatiently. Draco held onto his arm as he watched Snape pour his blood into his mouth, closing his eyes tight as the dark flood ran past his tongue and into his stomach. For a second Snape kept his eyes closed, gently swaying. He then opened them, and Draco could see that the pupils were largely dilated. Snape shuddered and muttered something unintelligible before slumping over to the side, rolling off the edge of the fountain and to the ground in a heap. Draco gasped and leaned over Snape to place a hand on the fallen man's shoulder, but when his hand came into contact with Snape's robes, it was as if someone had dilated a balloon - Snape's body had vanished leaving his robes lying in a useless heap on the ground.  
Growling impatiently, Draco stood up and pushed his robes back down over his wrist, and chose the left side of the fork pathway to walk through. 

Harry dropped the empty flask on the ground and curled up next to Draco's body before the pain took over his body. He felt his chest seize up, rendering him breathless for a good ten seconds. He thought that he had done it - this was it, he had killed himself. Never mind Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived getting killed by some supernatural force, he managed to be defeated by a cup of coffee.  
Harry's lungs eventually drew back and he was able to take in small gasps of air, whimpering between goes. His heart was slamming inside of his chest, his body slick with sweat and trembling under the force. He managed to worm his way over on the pillow so that his and Draco's heads lay next to each other on the pillow. Harry felt his nerves being stretched to the limit - like spreading a bit of butter on bread too big, the pain excruciating, making his ears wring and his nose bleed. As his vision began to cloud over, Harry let his body slip away. The thought occurred to him that if the visions he saw when he left his body were too much, it could very well give him a heart attack and kill him. _I don't care._ He thought to himself. _If I don't find Draco, there's no reason for me to come back anyway.  
_Harry could feel the pain ebb away, and he suddenly realised he was hovering above his body. _Holy Merlin... this is actually happening..._ Harry felt himself being pulled through a sucking vortex of light, the walls around him twirling into nothing...

Harry woke up with a start, a deep thudding sensation in his solar plexus. Reaching up to place a hand on his chest, Harry frowned as he felt the silky sensation of satin under his touch. He appeared to be wearing some kind of suit - a pinstriped jacket and matching trousers with a satiny green shirt, and he was also stretched out on a large garden chair. He realised that it was dark around him, the sky deep purple and moving in a very unusual fashion - faster than naturally plausible. He suddenly took notice of the other garden chairs around him, littering the large area of grass, all empty. Just as he was about to stand up, a warm hand slid on his lap, squeezing his thigh.   
Gasping and turning round to the chair sat next to him, Harry glared at the boy who was gazing raptly into his eyes. Chris.  
The strawberry blonde wore a black turtleneck jumper with a green suit on over it, his glinting eyes glowing dangerously in the darkness. His strawberry blonde hair was slicked back into a gelled ponytail, making him look scarily like Draco when he was younger. His hand moved further up Harry's thigh, and he leaned over to Harry's ear. "Do you want this as bad as I do?"  
_No, I just want Draco!_ Harry thought. He opened his mouth to say exactly that, and what came out instead was "Hell, yes."  
Chris grinned evilly and attacked Harry's mouth with his own, tugging at Harry's fly and slipping his hand into Harry's trousers, running his slender fingers up and down Harry's perfidious erection. Harry wrapped his fingers around Chris' neck and kissed him back eagerly, kissing him hungrily.  
As Harry came hard into Chris' hand, Harry's come began to fizz and burn at Chris' flesh, hissing dangerously. Harry let out a strangled yelp, but Chris didn't seem to mind at all as his flesh was getting fried by Harry's semen.   
Chris grinned again and leaned into kiss Harry again, but his face was unusually gaunt, the skin stretched over his bones like thin parchment. Harry shrank away from Chris as Chris' skin began to rot before his eyes, much like what Harry had saw happen to himself in the bathroom of the Manor. Harry pushed fiercely as Chris' dry looking tongue flicked out at him, but then it wasn't Chris at all. It was Harry's ex boyfriend, Adam. Adam's usually tan coloured skin was stark white, his deep blue eyes sparkling and bulging out of his face. His lips pouted and he leaned in towards Harry. "_Harry..._" He whispered huskily. "_why did we ever break up? We never did get to fuck, did we?"_ Then Adam's face changed to Ginny Weasley. Then from Ginny to Cho... they kept changing...  
Harry shoved himself out of the seat, causing it to clatter behind him. All at once, the seats in the garden began to fill up with people Harry recognised, but all of their faces looked dead and decayed. They all stirred and turned to face Harry, growling, some cracking their knuckles. Harry turned and ran. He jumped over the tangled limbs, galloped through the endless rows of chairs and kept running through the large clearing towards a wall in the distance. Harry leapt over the wall and landed with a thud onto the grass ground, covering his face with his hands and waiting for the zombified creatures to climb over after him and squash him like a fly. But it never happened.  
Harry gave a couple of seconds for his breathing to calm down before he lifted his hands off his face. Suddenly he was no longer next to the wall he had just climbed over, but in the middle of a large courtyard walled with tall green hedges. A maze of some sort. In the middle of the courtyard was a large fountain, and next to it was a pile of black robes. Frowning, Harry stood up and leaned over them, curious as to how they got there. A small bottle lay smashed next to the robes, faint speckles of blood dripping from the shards. _Well, you're in a hallucination now. And it's not even your own, so you better get used to seeing some fucked up things.  
_The place was lighter around him, and Harry suddenly got a better look at his outfit. He _was_ wearing some kind of suit, a very expensive one at that. He felt a long black wizards cloak on his back, lined with silver velvet. Wincing and placing a shaky hand on his head, Harry felt that his hair was no longer unruly. It was in fact slicked back like Draco used to wear his, only Harry's hair was dark so it must have looked somewhat different. He still wore his glasses.  
Somewhere in the distance, a faint note sounded, and music seemed to fill the air. Turning around on the spot, Harry frowned as a piano seemed to appear from nowhere, playing a very complicated melody on it's own.   
"Oh, now." Harry muttered impatiently. "This is just silly."  
The music stopped abruptly, and the piano's lid flew open, and Harry yelped and stood back as a large whoosh of light swept over him. He clamped his eyes shut and clenched his fists. "Excuse me, young gentleman?" A shrill feminine voice asked. Harry risked it and opened his eyes and nearly laughed out loud at the sight before him. In the background, Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz bellowed loudly. In front of him, Hermione Granger lay on top of the piano, dressed in a blue frilly faery costume. "Yes, you." Hermione breathed. Her eyes shone brilliantly blue, matching her costume, a faint silver light dancing around her hair that seemed to blow around her face elegantly. "You're in a hallucination. Hallucination's are not supposed to make sense, young man." She said, and suddenly whipped out a long cigarette holder from the front of her robes and gestured it to Harry. "Here, have a stick of tea. It might calm you down a bit, love."  
Harry's jaw remained dropped as he accepted the cigarette from Hermione. This whole situation was simply _laughable.   
_Hermione smiled. "Care to dance?"   
Harry felt his cheeks flush. "I don't dance." He mumbled. Hermione sighed and stood up off the piano. "Oh well." She began to dither off towards one of the paths in the maze in time to the music.   
"Wait!" Harry called. "Do you know where any of the Malfoys are? Draco? Lucius?"  
As the music began to speed up and the strings took over, Hermione waltzed further away, not hearing Harry's question, and she disappeared into the distance, along with the piano.  
Harry let both of his hands flop to his sides and he shaked his head in disbelief. Who would have thought it? Draco thought of Hermione Granger in a blue tutu?   
Harry looked at the cigarette in his hand and shrugged, searching the pockets of his suit for a lighter. There was one - a slim silver one that screamed wealth. He sat down on the edge of the fountain and stuck the cigarette into his mouth, lighting it and taking a calming inhale in. Instead of the usual thick, warm cloudy taste of nicotine, came a bitter, burning tang. He coughed and dropped the cigarette to the ground. "A stick of tea." He murmured to himself. Before Harry had a chance to think about his statement, pounding footsteps sounded behind him and he was slammed violently to the ground. His palms scraped against the concrete of the tiles below him, and he nearly had the wind knocked out of him.  
"I should have known it, _Harry._" Before Harry had the chance to process the voice in his brain, a boot had connected with the small of his back, shoving him hard into the ground.  
Harry groaned and turned over onto his back to look up at his attacker. "... Dad?!"  
"Don't you fucking say my name like that!" James Potter spat. "Not after you've touched that... thing!"   
Harry looked straight into James' burning brown eyes and realised that this wasn't the real James Potter. It couldn't be. "Look, Dad..."  
James kicked Harry again in the stomach. "I said don't say my name like that!"  
Harry lifted his hands up in defence. "What else am I supposed to call you?" he said croakily, trying to catch his breath, "Can't you talk to me before you beat me into a bloody pulp?"  
"What do you want to talk about, Harry?" James snarled.   
Harry looked up at James, his green eyes now blazing. "I have all kinds of things I want to talk about. Let's talk about Harry Potter, The Boy Who FUCKING Lived and Hated It, huh? Let's talk about the famous James Potter of Hogwarts and how he used to _BULLY THE SHIT_ out of people who weren't good enough for him? TELL ME HOW I'VE MANAGED TO LIVE MY LIFE WITHOUT YOU IN IT, HUH?!!"  
Harry tensed and took in a deep breath, expecting to get pounded into the ground. But James only smiled sardonically. "You want to know things, do you? The take a look at _this_." _  
_James pulled Harry up by the scruff of his neck and used his free hand to dig into his pocket, pulling out a used condom. The end was split, and a long dangling piece of white fluid hung from it. "This is why you're here, Harry." James snarled. "I was a fucking _kid_ when I had you, boy. I didn't want a baby more than you don't want one right now. Of course your mother was over the moon when she found out, but _I_ had a future. And you ruined it!"_  
_"_BULLSHIT!"_ Harry screamed, his face flushing with anger. "Voldemort ruined your future, kid or no kid! You're just using me as an excuse for you're own failure..."  
James jammed the condom through Harry's lips and through into his mouth, slithering over his tongue like a dead skin. Harry felt vomit touch the back of his tongue as James extracted his fingers, leaving the used condom inside Harry's mouth. He twisted his head away from James' grip and spat the rubber onto the floor, but the deadly flavour of his own father's come in his mouth still tainted his taste buds, tasting like mortality._  
_"Swallow it." James snarled. "It could have been you."_  
_Harry's bottom lip began to quiver. "This isn't happening..." He whimpered. "This isn't you... you aren't real..."  
"Oh, yeah?" said James. "Then I suppose if I'm not real, this won't hurt?" Harry only saw a flash of James' fist before it connected with his jaw, the skin splitting open on his lip. Harry stumbled backwards onto the ground, crumpling in a heap as James continued to kick him.  
"You fucking smart-arsed BRAT. How smart are you going to be now, Harry? How smart are you going to be with your fucking **BRAINS STOMPED OUT INTO THE GRASS?!**"  
_He's going to kill me. _Harry thought to himself as James' foot connected with his back, over and over again. _He's going to kick me to death right here and now, and the sad fact is, he's not even real. This isn't even my dad. _A sudden thought occurred to Harry. _Will my body back at the manor die, too? Will Draco wake up next to my bashed up body and think that he did it?  
_The idea was too much to take. Harry rolled over and grabbed a hold of his father's ankle, and yanked as hard as he could. James' stumbled slightly and growled with anger, connecting the toe of his shoe into Harry's stomach. Harry felt the wind knock out of him. _Well, that's that. _Harry thought as he tried to breath. _That was my chance, and it fucked up royally. Now he's just going to kill me harder.   
_James reached down and yanked Harry up by his shoulder, almost dislocating it. "You're smart enough to get into places, but not smart enough to know when you're not wanted." He hissed into Harry's face. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cloth bag that jingled.  
_Galleons...  
_James grinned before he swung the bag in the air with his fist, ready to connect with Harry's face.  
_Draco, _Harry promised silently, _if I see you again... no, WHEN I see you again, I'm taking you away from this place. You're coming home with me, and we'll keep each other as sane as we want to be and love each other as long as we are alive. We'll let go of our pasts and start making our future...  
_Then, his father's slap blew across his skull, and the instant before his mind went black, Harry saw the tiny gold galleons sparkle around his face to the ground.

Draco continued to walk through the narrow path that that the fork trail had given him, but the hedges around him seemed to get smaller and smaller, until it was nothing but a large field. As if from nowhere, a stark white building began to materialise before his eyes - the overgrown garden before him grey and saddened. _The Manor...  
_Draco knew that he had to go in. He knew there was no going back, and if he died this time, it would be as if he was killed that same fateful night his whole family did. If he didn't die, the remainder of his life was free, and it belonged to him. And to Harry, if he still wanted any part of it. _It's the house where you lost your virginity after nearly twenty years, too._ A voice in Draco's head said.   
As Draco entered the house, the hall was just how he remembered it - empty and grand, gleaming cleanly. Draco advanced up the stairwell, and his heart skipped a beat as he saw Narcissa lie out sprawled in the bathroom doorway. She was how he found her that morning, a heap of gore and blood in her lap, staring skyward as if praying.   
Draco stepped over Narcissa's body and headed for his father's office. But no one was inside - no one hung from the chandelier, and there was no broken bottle on the floor. Draco frowned and backed out of the room.  
Draco then found himself standing before the closed door of his own room. It felt like he was doing a tight rope act between the past and the future, and if he lost balance now, everything would be ruined. Draco reached out and slowly opened the bedroom door.   
The man sitting on the edge of Draco's bed looked up. His cold grey eyes looked up at Draco's, and his bony face and hands smeared with blood. His silver hair was covered in it, and in his right hand he held a broken bottle covered in slimy gore. Draco noticed that there was somebody else in the room, buried beneath the blankets of the bed. But he couldn't tell who it was.  
Silence ached on and he and Lucius simply glared at one another, their faces more alike than Draco had remembered. Lucius' stillness seemed to stir, and he began to speak hoarsely. "Who are you?"  
"I'm your son."  
"Narcissa... the servants..."  
"You killed them. You know me, Lucius." Draco walked into the room. "You had _ better_ know me. I haven't stopped thinking about you for almost four years."  
"Ohh, Draco..." The bottle fell out of Lucius' hand, landing onto the ground with a heavy whack. His grey eyes filled up with tears. "Is it really you?"  
"Look in the mirror if you don't believe me."  
"No... no... I know who you are." Lucius' normally sharp shoulders shrank. He looked exhausted, bleak. "How old are you? Nineteen? Twenty?"  
"Nineteen."  
"Do you still play?"  
"Fuck!" Draco said. He suddenly remembered the broken piano. "You should know!"  
Lucius shook his head slowly. "No, son. I don't know. I don't know anything anymore." As Lucius looked into Draco's eyes, Draco saw the raw hurt in his father's eyes, and it stung him like poison.   
"Why didn't you kill me?" Draco asked. This is the one question he had been waiting to ask for almost four years.  
Lucius shrugged helplessly. "I just kept sitting here, remembering your playing... your music. Your art. Wondering how in the hell I could hit you with that thing, wondering how I could bury that glass into your charming, intelligible brain, thinking how _easy_ they'd been compared to you. They were like anatomy lessons... the body is a puzzle of flesh and blood and bone... do you understand?"  
Draco nodded. He thought about the times he had hit Harry, how good it felt and how much he wanted to tear the raven haired boy apart and study the different pieces.   
"And when you kill people you love, you watch what your hands are doing, you feel the blood hitting your face, but all the time you're thinking _Why am I doing this?!_ And then you get it. It's _because_ you love them, because you want _all_ of their secrets, not just the secrets they show you. And after you take them apart, you know everything..."  
"Then why..." Draco couldn't bring himself to speak. So it was true; his father hadn't loved him enough to kill him.  
"Why did I leave you out? Because I had to. Because I sat there watching you sleep, thinking all that. And then you came in, just now. I can't do it, son. If I have any talent left at all, it's in you now. I can kill them, I can kill myself, but I can't kill that."  
Lucius picked up the bottle again and walked towards Draco.  
"Wait!" Draco cried, reaching out for his father, but his hands went through thin air. "What... are you...?" He didn't know how to express what he wanted to ask. "What about Noxland? What happened to it for you?"  
"Noxland is a system oiled with the blood of artists." Lucius said distantly. "Noxland is a mirror that reflects death. Noxland never existed. Nox."  
"But it's right here! It's right outside that window!" Draco cried. "It's where I just came from!"  
"Yes," Lucius replied. "But I stay in here." He placed the bottle into Draco's hand, and folded Draco into a tight embrace that felt like a warm mist. He slowly began to fade into him.  
"_No!"_ Draco screamed. "_Don't go! Tell me why you did it! TELL ME!!!"  
"You don't really want to know why,"_ he heard Lucius say. _"You just want to know what it felt like..."  
_And then Lucius was gone. Draco was standing alone in his bedroom. "Tell me." He whispered.  
"_You're an artist, my son." _The voice whispered back. "_Find out for yourself."  
_The world suddenly went black.

~~~|~~~

to be continued...


	9. The Puzzle of Flesh

** The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
by Miss T**

_Title: The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
Author: Miss T  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Genre: Romance/Future-fic/Horror  
Notes: This story is based on one of my favourite adult-books of all time - Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite. The story is not exactly the same, just based around it, although some of it is very similar. I thought it was a good Harry/Draco plot, and I hope you all like it! Please please please take my recommendation of reading Drawing Blood... it really is good._

_Chapter Eight_

_The Puzzle Of Flesh_

_Remember, you promised me  
I'm dying, I'm dying please  
I want to, I need to be  
Under your skin...  
- hole - dying_

Harry felt a freezing stimulating flash of energy surge through his body, and suddenly became aware of his weight and the mattress underneath him. He could feel his heart slamming against his ribcage, and he could taste his own blood in his mouth as it ran from his nose and down past his throat. His head felt twenty times too big for him and his hands stung as if he had a million paper cuts. Either everything that had just happened was real, or this was one intense motherfucker of a trip.

Harry pried his eyes open and saw Draco sitting at the end of the bed, staring into space. The scars on his arms were closed but his hands and bare legs were still marred with dried blood, his long pale hair lying in sweaty clumps down his back.Harry also noticed that he held a rusted bottle in his right fist, that same rusted bottle that he had seen Draco with the first night. Harry sat up slowly and blinked owlishly, his glasses lost somewhere on the bed. "Draco?" He whispered hoarsely. "Are you alright?"Draco didn't answer."Draco?" Harry managed to slither his way down to the end of the mattress and closer to Draco. "Draco, listen, you didn't hurt me. I'm fine." Harry winced as his vision began to get blurry and his head began to buzz painfully. "Are you okay? What's the matter?"Draco turned around slowly, his eyes no longer shining in the darkness. They absorbed the darkness around them and looked blank, his features expressionless and drained. "He saw me." Draco whispered. "He saw me in there.""Who saw you, Draco?""My father." Draco's eyes were cold and depthless. "He saw me come in here that night. He talked to me.""Where were you?" Harry asked warily."Noxland."_Of course, where else?_ "No, I mean... I mean _when_ were you?""This house. That night. I saw Mother - she was dead. I didn't check the servants quarters but I knew that they would have been, too. Then I came in here, and Lucius was alive. He was sitting on this bed deciding whether to kill me. He saw me, _spoke_ to me, and decided he couldn't do it. It was my own fault.""I'm not really sure if I understand. You mean you woke up and talked him out of it?""NO! He saw me the way I am NOW! He talked to ME NOW, and then he went and HUNG HIMSELF! LOOK AT THIS! DON'T YOU SEE?" Draco shook the bottle in his hand. Harry shrank away from Draco to the head of the bed and pressed his back against the wall."He talked to you at age nineteen?""Yes.""He was haunted by your ghost.""Yes.""Wow." It was beginning to make more sense to Harry now. He winced as a drop of blood from his nose landed on his bare chest, running down slowly onto his navel. Draco turned and faced Harry, and gently placed the side of the glass bottle to Harry's face. He ran it smoothly across Harry's cheek, his face illustrious, nearly elated.

"Draco?" Harry asked, his voice trembling. "What are you doing?"

"I'm getting ready, Harry.""What for?""The puzzle of flesh."_/Whatever in the name of Merlin that is supposed to mean./_

"Okay, I'll help you with that if you want. But you have to put the bottle down first."

Draco glared at Harry with his cold, depthless eyes."Please?" Harry whispered croakily.Draco shook his head slowly. "I can't." he said, and raised the bottle in the air. His eyes drilled holes into Harry's, full of yearning, beseeching horror - Harry realised that Draco did not want to be doing this. Draco had the bottle raised above Harry's head, ready to land between Harry's temples. Harry panicked and scuttled underneath Draco, falling off the bed and clambering for the door. But Draco had got up in three easy strides and blocked the doorway, crashing the bottle to the wall beside Harry's face.

"_What are you doing?!!"_ Harry screamed.

"I'm finding out what it feels like, Harry.""WHY?!""Because I'm an artist." Draco snarled. "I have to know. I need to know." He pinned Harry hard against the wall with his other hand, gripping onto Harry's left forearm. He raised the bottle again."Draco - please... I love you...""I love you too, Harry." Draco replied honestly, though his voice was distant and persistent - utterly mad. He flung the bottle over Harry's head, but Harry twisted away so that it landed with an audible crunch on his shoulder.Harry yelped in pain as Draco pulled the bottle back up again, and he whipped his hand up just in time to grab Draco's wrist. He glared deeply into Draco's eyes.  
"Listen to me, Draco." Harry gasped. "Why do you need to _know? _You have an imagination, don't you?"Draco blinked for a second, and slammed his body against Harry's. Harry winced and tried again. "Your imagination is better than Lucius'! He might have had to do it to find out how it felt, _but you don't!"_

_  
_Draco wavered for a second, his grip only loosening slightly on Harry.

_ /Fight back, Harry!/_ He thought to himself frantically. _/Do something now, because if you don't, you're a goner! JUST DO IT!!/_

_  
_Harry yelled as he drove his knee straight into Draco's crotch, pushing Draco's arm back as hard as he could. Draco gasped and stumbled backwards, and Harry twisted Draco's wrist around, so that the pale boy lost grip of the bottle. It landed to the floor with a clunk and rolled to the other side of the room.

"Fine!" Draco growled. "I'll do it with my bare hands!"Draco wormed his way out of Harry's weak grip and lunged on the other boy, but Harry had managed to slide out of his grip and into the hallway. Harry landed with a painful thud on his backside, and Draco leaned down and gripped a hold of his messy, sweat slicked hair. He pulled him upwards, causing Harry's neck to bend painfully backwards, and he stumbled against Draco, who instantly wrapped his other arm around Harry's waist so that he couldn't fight back."I just want to know how you're made." Draco said breathily. "I love you so much, Harry. I want to tear you apart and study each separate piece of you... I want to crawl inside that curious brain of yours, I want to feel what you're heart feels like beating in my hands...""It can only beat in your hands for a few seconds, Draco. Then I'll be dead and you won't have me anymore." Harry spluttered."Oh, yes I will, Harry! You'll be right here with me forever."

Harry cried in pain as Draco sank his teeth into the back of his neck, sucking and tearing at the flesh until blood began to trickle down Harry's shoulder. Harry sobbed wildly and weakly tried to fight his way out of Draco's clutch, but nothing gave. Draco continued to bite into Harry's flesh as he dragged him through into the bathroom across the hall.

_/He's taking me to his hell,/ _Harry thought, feeling hot tears curse down his face, _/and he's going to rip and tear at me to try and find my magic, until there's nothing left but a useless corpse.../_

_  
_Draco kicked the door shut. The bathroom was dark but the shards of mirror in the tub sparkled in the moonlight from the window. Harry began to feel woozy, detached - Draco's hold on him was making it difficult to breath. He suddenly realised he was going to die right now. Draco slammed Harry into the tiled wall face first, and Harry blacked out completely.

As Harry slumped to the ground, Draco kneeled before him and licked his lips, already tainted with the raven haired boy's blood. He began to scratch and claw at Harry's chest, watching the blood spray and splatter onto his fingers and the stark white complexion of Harry's flesh. Taking his fingers away he eagerly leaned in and ran his tongue along the trails of blood, occasionally ripping at Harry's flesh with his teeth. It was _so_ easy... _so_ right... so _beautiful!_

_  
_Harry's hands came up and try to bat Draco away weakly, but it was no use. "Draco...?" said Harry faintly. "I won't fight you. But if you are going to kill me, please tell me why."

Draco moved up to Harry's neck and began to bite at the tender flesh he had feasted on in the hall. "Why what?""Why pain is better than love. Why you'd rather kill me for the sheer kick of it than try to have a life with me. I thought you were brave. This is some pretty cowardly shit." Harry's eyes were overflowing with tears, and Draco ran his tongue over them, flicking it over the soft eyelids and wondering what it would be like to burst one of Harry's eyeballs.

"To see everything, you have to be alive. If you do this to me, you're going to die, too. Tell me you're not." Harry whispered.

Draco stopped and remembered something. Lucius had said to him that Noxland was a system oiled with the blood of artists.

Draco looked down at Harry. He was covered in blood - from his temple, from his nose and mouth, deep crimson bite marks on his neck and shoulder, his chest furiously marred with claw marks. His eyes held Draco's, and his expression hovered somewhere between petrified and serene.

"Whatever you want." Harry whispered. "It's your decision."The words tore Draco completely from his trance, from his desires to reach inside of Harry and tear him apart. Because it wasn't just a body, he realised. It wasn't a puzzle or an anatomy lesson or a source of magical knowledge, it was _/Harry./_

The beautiful boy he had teased all throughout school, the young man he had lost his virginity to, and had heard moan and whimper his name under his touch, his best friend. His soul. Not a box of toys to destroy.

Harry was right - whatever Draco did next would be his own choice, and he would have to live with it until he died, even if it were for only a couple of minutes. And if he died, would he go to Noxland? He thought of Lucius, alone with his broken victims forever. What if Draco ended up back here with his own dead? Yet Lucius had given him the bottle and told him to find out what it feels like. Was Noxland thirsty for blood to grease its cogs?Pushing himself off Harry, Draco stared at his blood covered hands.

_'If I have any talent, any gift left at all, _he heard his father saying, _it's in you now.'_

_  
/Fuck that./_ Draco thought. _/I'm not finishing off your dirty work./_

_  
_Draco turned away from Harry and stepped into the bath tub, not daring to wince as the broken glass embedded into his feet. Draco glared into the gleaming shards of mirror. "I won't do it." he murmured. "I don't need to know what it feels like. I don't need to play it. _I can live it._" Draco lifted his fist in the air and drove it straight into the tiled wall. The gleaming wall splattered with blood as his fist burst open, although it hadn't hurt at all. He _wanted _it to hurt - he wanted the pain. Falling to his knees, Draco began slamming his fists again and again into the hard porcelain bathtub, into the glass.

Harry thought he heard a bone snap in Draco's hand. Trying to push himself up, Harry's head felt too heavy for his body, and he had to slide along the floor towards Draco. The porcelain tub actually shook under Draco's punches, Draco's blood splattering up onto the gleaming white surface. Harry clung onto the edge of the tub with one arm as he reached over to place his hand on Draco's back.

Draco twirled round to face Harry, his eyes bright and manic.

_/This is it,/ _ Harry thought, flinging his last shred of hope out the window, _/He's going to kill me now, and then beat himself to death. Lucius can watch. How fucking stupid. How utterly useless./_ Harry wasn't afraid anymore - Harry was disappointed.

Draco stopped punching and glared at Harry, his face on tenterhooks.

_/Something I said made him stop hurting me, _Harry thought, _Now, what do I have to say so he stops hurting himself?/_

_  
_"Listen," Harry started, his voice tired. "Lucius killed the others because he couldn't take care of them anymore, and he couldn't let them go. Then he killed himself because he couldn't live without them, right?"

Draco didn't answer, he just continued to stare at Harry as if he were the most weird and interesting thing on the planet. "Is this about love?" Harry asked. "Draco, do you think you have to make all this keep happening to prove your love for me?"Draco nodded slowly after a few silent seconds.

Harry's expression turned desperate. "But I _know_ you love me, Draco. I believe you. I want to stay alive and show you. I don't need you to take care of me, I can take care of myself. And if you come away with me I will never leave you. Ever."

"How..." Draco's voice was dry and husky. "How can I know that?""You have to trust me," said Harry, "Leave your Slytherin tactics at the door and trust me, Draco. All I can tell you is the truth, you have to decide the rest for yourself."

Draco looked up from the magnetic spinning of reflective mirror shards and blood, and looked into Harry's damaged face. His knuckles felt as if they could fall apart at any given moment, and they no longer hurt, they just felt numb. He knew he had to have at least broken a couple of fingers, and the realisation made him miserable - he had nearly killed himself, and taken Harry with him.

Draco tried to climb out of the bathtub, but with a stifled yelp he landed in Harry's arms, who pulled him over and into a gentle embrace. He could feel Harry's blood smear onto him as their chests pressed together; could feel Harry's strangled breathing. "What can I do?" he heard himself ask - it wasn't exactly the question he had wanted to ask, but he couldn't exactly think of anything else to say."Leave with me. Now."Draco expected some supernatural force to drag him back under the floorboards, to keep in enfolded inside the house - but it never happened. He looked over at the blooded bathtub and realised he didn't feel sad anymore - he just felt trepidation. This was where Lucius had chose to stay, and Draco could go anywhere he wanted.Harry awkwardly stumbled to his feet, holding Draco up under his waist, and pulled them into the hall. Through the windows the first signs of dawn began to appear, illuminating Harry's bloody, exhausted face. They stumbled into Draco's bedroom and sat on the bed, where Harry found his glasses on the mattress and shakily put them on.Draco watched Harry anxiously, tears of shame filling his grey eyes. Harry leaned against him, and ran his hand gingerly up and down Draco's undamaged arm. "We need to get out of here." he whispered."Where will we go?" Draco asked."Away." Harry let his eyes run over Draco's broken and bloody hands. "We need a hospital. Your hands... your fingers look broken... and I think I'm concussed.""Oh... Harry...""You didn't do it. My father did.""Your father?""We can talk about it later... right now we need help. I'll get my car... I'll drive us down to the village and we can get Martin to drive us to a muggle hospital... or at least tell us where one is."

Draco tried to straighten his fingers but all it done was sent sharp bolts of pain up his arms. He hissed and closed his eyes. "Alright, but... are you sure you'll be able to drive?" Draco didn't really know much about muggle transportation - he didn't know if it was safe for Harry to be driving in the state that he was in.

"I think so." Harry replied, standing up. They helped each other dress, and Draco took a bag full of some personal belongings from his room. As they left the house, they were graced with the cool morning air damp with frosty dew that soothed their tired, broken faces. Harry helped Draco into the passenger seat and clumsily tied on the seat belt for him. He walked round the front of the car and sat in the driver's seat, taking in a deep breath of air before starting the engine.  
The engine rattled on and startled Draco for a second, before he relaxed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the car was still rattling but there was no movement - Harry was slumped over the driver's wheel. "_Harry!"_ Draco cried, sitting up.

  
"... mmm?" Harry replied, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "Right... okay... " he mumbled sleepily and began to pull out of the drive way. As they were driving along the narrow country lane towards the village, Draco saw that Harry was starting to doze off again at the wheel.

"Harry?" Draco asked, shaking Harry's shoulder. "Stay awake, you can't fall asleep...""... uh huh..." Harry replied, swallowing and blinking his eyes.Before they knew it, they had pulled up into the entrance of the village, and stumbled out of the car towards Martin's pub.

_ Next Chapter_

_  
  
_


	10. Repercussions

** The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
by Miss T**

_Title: The Trick Is To Keep Breathing  
Author: Miss T  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Genre: Romance/Future-fic/Horror  
Notes: This story is based on one of my favourite adult-books of all time - Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite. The story is not exactly the same, just based around it, although some of it is very similar. I thought it was a good Harry/Draco plot, and I hope you all like it! Please please please take my recommendation of reading Drawing Blood... it really is good._

_Chapter Nine_

_Repercussions_

Martin Parish was loading barrels under the counter when he heard a banging on the front door of his pub. He was in for the early morning delivery, and wasn't expecting any customers this morning, let alone at the crack of dawn.

"We're not open!" He yelled from under the counter.

The banging continued, getting louder. Sighing and getting to his feet, Martin walked over to the door and pulled it open, only to have two young wizards fall through the threshold and into the dim light of the empty pub.Draco Malfoy had his bloody arm underneath Harry Potter's waist, holding him steady as the green eyed boy pulled and scratched at his own hair. Harry's face was covered in blood and bruises, and Draco's hands and face were splattered with dry blood. Martin's jaw dropped in a questioning expression, not really knowing what to make of the whole situation."I'm keeping myself awake." Harry mumbled. "I have a head injury. We could use some help, if you don't mind.""What in the name of Merlin happened to you two?" Martin heard himself ask."Do you know how to drive?" Draco asked.Martin moved forward and gingerly lifted Draco's arm up, observing his broken fingers. Harry stumbled backwards away from the two and landed with a thud on the floor. He swore under his breath as his eyes began to fill up with helpless tears. Draco and Martin helped him up and the barman led the two to a table. "I can't _think_ straight." Harry whimpered.

"Are we talking about a muggle car, here?" Martin asked Draco. Draco nodded.

"Well, yes... I can drive... not very well, mind you but I think I'll manage to get you into town to the nearest emergency room."As the three men piled into Harry's car - Harry and Draco in the backseat, Martin in the front. Draco tried his best to keep Harry awake for the duration of the journey, even tried their usual swap of insults but Harry kept drifting in and out of sleepy dozes. Draco was afraid that if he let the raven haired boy fall asleep, he might never wake up.

When the three men eventually reached a hospital, Draco immediately approached the front desk of the emergency room, his eyes blazing, not really caring that he was surrounded by muggles.

He checked himself and Harry in, telling the nurse only that they had been in an accident. "Marital status?" She asked, fumbling with some sort of white board with little letters and numbers on it.

Harry looked up at Draco with questioning eyes. "Single. He's with me." Draco replied.

The nurse glared at Draco and considered his words. "Brothers?"

"Uh... cousins. That's our uncle over there." Draco nodded at Martin.

"Okay, you can go back together." The nurse handed Draco and Harry a clipboard and some medical forms and pointed them in the direction of the waiting area.

Draco realised that the muggle-medication technique was far more painful than that of the wizard. "We can't go to St Mungo's." Harry hissed in his ear as a nurse strapped his fingers together painfully. "One - our injuries aren't exactly magic related, and two, they'll know who we are - the press, just imagine the headlines of the prophet tomorrow morning."

Draco snorted. **_'YOUNG MALFOY GOES CRAZY AND BEATS OLD SCHOOL RIVAL INTO A BLOODY PULP. OH, AND BY THE BY HIS OLD SCHOOL RIVAL HAPPENS TO BE THE BOY WHO LIVED.'_**

**_  
_**"You're right." Draco sighed as the nurse gave him a bag of ice to hold over his bandaged hand. He watched as a doctor fussed over Harry, looking at the gash on his head and shining a little black rod that looked like a wand with a light at the end in Harry's eyes.

The doctor then turned to Draco and placed the wand-thing in the top pocket of his white shirt. "He's concussed. But it's not serious, so I suggest you let him rest - don't let him move around a lot."

"I have to..." Harry whined in the background as a nurse gave him some more painkillers. "I'm the Boy Who Lived..."

"I won't." Draco told the doctor as he helped Harry down from the examining table. The doctor glared at the wound on Harry's head again. "Mmmm, maybe we ought to stitch that up." he pondered.

"No! No stitches!" Harry suddenly got a flashback of when he was seven, climbing the tree in the back garden at the Dursley's. He remembered falling out of the tree headfirst when Dudley had shook the branch he was lying on... going to the hospital with a _very_ exasperated Uncle Vernon. He was forbidden to go outside for the rest of the summer holidays.

"Well, it's your head... What hit you, anyway?" The doctor asked.

"A bag of gold coins."

"Pfft! A bag of gold coins? Couldn't have been - that would have knocked you dead!"

"It was coins." Harry insisted.

The doctors eyes went wide and he turned to Draco. "He might not be... err... compos mentis for a day or so."

"I understand." Draco placed a hand on Harry's and smiled.

_/I believe you./_

_  
_

On the way back to the village, Draco and Harry remained huddled in the back seat together as Draco tried to give Martin a logical explanation of the night's events, not really going into too much detail than were necessary. Martin didn't say much, but he seemed to believe every word from Draco's mouth.

"I don't know what we're going to do." Draco told Martin. "Would it be possible to stay in one of the rooms at your pub for a day or so?"Martin nodded sharply as he pulled the car into a small space at the back of his building. "Absolutely. No problem - as long as you need.""Oh, I don't think it'll be very long." Draco replied, his tone very thankful for Martin's generosity.

_/I like the village - but even staying in the same place as that manor is too much to take. I found out what I needed to find out and I'm going home with Harry./_

_  
_Draco looked down at Harry who was currently lying on his lap, his green eyes shining in the morning light. He wasn't supposed to go to sleep for another couple of hours - orders of the muggle doctors, but he looked wide awake anyway. Awake, and glad to be alive.

Kerid sighed as he set up the shop for the day, mulling behind the till like he usually did on a boring Monday morning when no wizards or witches came to have a rummage in his little second hand bookshop. He had just been reflecting over the events at the pub last night, the way Chris had whined his ear off because Harry Potter had turned him down, when he noticed that a young witch and wizard were standing by the history section and eyeing him curiously. One was an overly tall man with sparkling blue eyes and a gawky build, shifty features with his longish flame coloured hair tucked behind his ears. The witch with him was a pretty petite girl with bouncy golden brown curls and a young looking face. She held onto the redhead's hand, and Kerid couldn't quite read her expression.

"Can I help you?" Kerid inquired. The witch stepped forward and thrust a photograph of Harry Potter towards Kerid across the counter. The photograph had been taken at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - it looked like the last day of term. The sun was shining bright in the wizard-photo, and Harry sat cross-legged against a large tree next to the lake, throwing a golden snitch in his hand and looking very pleased with himself.

"We're looking for this boy," she said. "His name is Harry. He's a good friend of ours, and we're worried about him - he hasn't contacted us for about a week now, and he was supposed to. We performed a locator charm and all that came up was this village - have you seen him?"

Kerid sighed and picked up the photo, as if pondering it. "My name's Hermione - this is Ron. We're his friends, please tell us if you have seen him." Hermione rambled on.

Kerid studied the photo more closely, watching it replay over and over, and noticed that the sides were worn and there was a crease in the middle of the paper - someone had been spending a lot of time looking at this photo. He wanted to bet that that someone was Hermione. "Why did you come here to ask?" Kerid suddenly said.

"Because Harry's a weed." Hermione replied shortly. "You usually find him in a bookshop."Kerid smiled and placed the photo down. "Okay," he said. "Harry's in the village, yes."Hermione's face lifted into a wide smile and she turned to face Ron excitedly before looking back at Kerid eagerly. She obviously cared about Harry a great deal, along with the rest of the world, so it seemed. Kerid decided not to mention Draco to either Hermione or Ron - it was none of his business anyway.

"He's staying with a friend." Kerid said. "In an abandoned mansion at the top of the hills. There is no way on this earth that I'm going to go up there, and I don't suggest you two go, either. But I'll take you over to the pub on the other side of the village that my friend Martin owns, he knows Harry. He can go tell him you're here."

"A friend?" Hermione echoed, her smile disappearing."Uh... yeah." Kerid replied. "Look, why don't I just take you over to Martin's, and he can tell you."

Up in one of the small inn-rooms above Martin's pub, Draco and Harry lay sprawled on the small single bed, neither of them asleep - just dozing in the gentle summer breeze coming from the open window.

"What were you wearing there?" Harry asked."Black expensive wizard cloaks that I've seen my father wear before. My hair was tied back like his, too. It was quite scary, actually." Draco laughed. "What about you?""I had this black pinstriped suit thing with a cloak and green satin shirt. My hair was gelled back.""Mmm, dashing. Shame I didn't see you.""We were in the same place, weren't we?""We were in Noxland.""What does that mean?""It means that we were inside Lucius' mind. Or we were in hell. Or we were just hallucinating. How the fuck should I know? You were there. You saw it." Draco began to regret his sharp tone, but he was not ready to pick apart at what went on inside the house just yet. He'd only just got out of it, he didn't want to sort out the memories just yet."Come home with me." Harry said eventually, his voice wavering.Draco caught his breath and looked down at Harry, whose dark haired head lay on Draco's chest. "But what about the press...""Fuck them. We'll find a way to get around that." Harry replied quickly. "I just can't leave London, Draco... it's my home. I love it there. And I want you to be with me."After a while, Draco finally answered. "Me too." He whispered. "I love you."".... mmmm... love you too..." Harry sighed as he fell asleep against Draco.

Kerid had led Ron and Hermione around to the back of Martin's pub, knowing that the older wizard wasn't opening until noon.

"That's Harry's car!" Hermione yelped shrilly, pointing to the blue muggle car that was parked awkwardly next to some barrels of Butterbeer.

Kerid leaded them to the backdoor of the pub and knocked loud on the hard wood. The door opened a crack and a tired eye looked out before it swung all the way back, revealing a tall, middle aged man with long dark hair tied into a ponytail. "Morning, Kerid." His gaze wandered over to Hermione and Ron and he eyed them politely, but questioningly.

"Good morning." Kerid said. "Uh, Martin? These are Harry Potter's friends from London. Seems Harry forgot to tell them where he was going, and didn't keep in touch. They were a bit worried about him."

Martin smiled. "Well, come in. The boys are asleep right now." He gestured them into the empty pub and pulled out some stools for them. "What're they doing here, Martin?" Kerid asked as he sat down.

"Something happened at that house last night." Martin said gravely.

"I knew it!" Kerid said, jumping up slightly. "I knew that place was haunted! I went in there once, me and Jordan and Jason, and you wouldn't believe what we saw-""What?" said a quiet voice from the doorway behind the counter. "What did you see?"Everyone turned round. A tall boy with long white-blonde hair stood shirtless, his right arm in bandages, his pale eyes looking at everyone sleepily.

Ron stood up automatically, causing his chair to fall over with a clatter. Hermione lifted her hands to her mouth and let out a muffled shriek.

"Malfoy?!" Ron said. The tone wasn't hostile, something Draco was expecting. It was just of utter disbelief."Ron." Draco replied, nodding. It felt so weird to say the redhead's first name, but if he wanted to be with Harry he was going to have to get used to it.

"How did you... what did you..." Hermione rambled, her eyes getting wider by the second.

Ron coughed uncomfortably and bent over to pick his seat back up, murmuring an unintelligible apology to Martin. "Just a fright, that's all." He said, his face going crimson. Draco raised his eyebrows. He was expecting more 'Omigod Harry's been with THIS git all the time' and 'you haven't changed at all ferret face''s, but none came."Hi, Draco." Kerid said uneasily. "I... errr, if you don't mind I'd rather not tell you what I saw. I shouldn't have been talking about it."  
"It's okay." Draco said. "So, Ron... Hermione..." Hermione muffled another whimper. "... what are you doing here?"Hermione then pursed her lips together and made a 'Pfft.' noise before standing up and folding her arms over. "We're Harry's friends, Malfoy. You should have known that by now-""Hermione..." Ron said tiredly, rubbing at his forehead."No, Ron! Malfoy, is Harry alright?" Hermione asked, turning her gaze away from her boyfriend and back up to Draco."He will be. What is it you actually want?" Draco said."Draco? What's going on?" A pair of arms came around Draco's waist from the darkness, and a moment later, Harry had his chin propped up on Draco's shoulder, his hair more messy than Hermione remembered it being, and his glasses gone. He was wearing a pair of black jogging bottoms and a white t-shirt, but it looked like he had only just shoved them on. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he made out Ron's flaming hair straight away... and Hermione's flaming face..."Holy cricket! I think I'm hallucinating again!""No, you're not. They're real." Draco steered Harry over to some more seats next to the table, sitting next to him and putting a caring arm around his shoulders. "They won't tell me why, though." He finished flatly, glaring at Hermione."We want you to leave with us, Harry." said Hermione. "You've hid long enough. I practiced a banishing charm around your flat - the press no longer know you're there anymore. They think you've moved to the Bahamas or something. They won't be coming back. You're safe to go back inside."Harry took in a deep breath through his nostrils. "First of all. Hi Hermione. Hi Ron." Ron smiled shyly at this and raised an awkward hand in a wave, only to be batted impatiently away by Hermione. "It's good to see you," Harry continued. "Thank you, for doing that. It means a lot. It saves us a job."Hermione spluttered a cough. "_Us?!_""Yeah, Herm. _Us._ Me and Draco. If there's a problem, then I suppose we'll have to get away on our own somewhere else."Hermione watched with fury pumping through her veins as Harry placed a hand on Draco's thigh. "Just tell me how you could do it." She said, trying her hardest to keep her tone even."Do what?""Fall in love for the first time, with your worst enemy of all people, you _ bastard_!"Harry's mouth opened and closed for a few seconds as he pondered the question, hurt running across his features due to what Hermione had called him. "I don't know." He answered honestly. "I've known Draco for eight years. But I only met him a week ago. It just feels right, Hermione."Hermione shifted her gaze over to Draco, who looked at her steadily, his expression calm and exposed. His usually cold grey eyes shone with a new light, burning passion and... _happiness?_ There was chemistry between Harry and Draco - that much was obvious. But Hermione wondered why. Was it all those repressed feelings back in their years at Hogwarts? Was there passion building up between that thin layer of hate? Did it burst over this week? Or did they just fall in love during the course of Harry's week here? Hermione didn't know. But she suddenly understood - they were just... _right_ together. It was obvious just watching them sit like that together.

Slowly, Hermione nodded, causing Harry's face to light up with the most heartbreaking smile - a smile she had sorely missed seeing over the past couple of days. "Whatever makes you happy, Harry." She said.

Ron nodded in agreement. "Hey, no hard feelings, eh mate?" He said uncomfortably over to Draco, who simply glared back with a raised eyebrow before smiling lightly.

"I'll keep my promise if you keep yours, Weasley... Ron." He replied, somewhat dryly.

The rest of the day was a perplexing haze for both Draco and Harry. Draco remembered getting dressed and saying goodbye to Martin and Kerid before getting into the back of the blue Ford with his boyfriend and promptly falling asleep on his lap as Hermione drove them and Ron back to London. He was just beginning to doze into a deep sleep when he felt someone shake his shoulders. Opening his eyes with a well-rehearsed 'Fuck off, I'm trying to sleep' planted at the back of his tongue, Draco gasped as he saw Harry smiling above him, and remembered where they were.

"Hi." Harry said, grinning.

"Hi." Draco replied sleepily, sitting up and looking out of the window. The car had now stopped, and Hermione was busy getting out of her seat and advancing on the trunk. In front of them was a large block-like building, about four or five stories up. The architecture was vaguely Victorian, but it looked very comfortable indeed.

"Welcome home." said Harry.

The End


End file.
